The pub­lic will still be able to go to the shop, gro­cery and drug store from Mon­day. But if you’re not do­ing that and aren’t among cer­tain es­sen­tial ser­vices which con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing, you’ll have to tell po­lice why you’re out­side and could ul­ti­mate­ly face a $50,000 fine and six months’ jail.

Min­istries and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions are al­so among a list of es­sen­tial ser­vices re­main­ing open af­ter to­mor­row night’s “Stay Home” man­date. But af­ter that, mo­tor ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing max­is, taxis and PTSC bus­es, will be lim­it­ed to 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on Fri­day an­nounced es­sen­tial sec­tors which will con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing from Mon­day as Gov­ern­ment bids to con­tain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

“This is our on­ly fight­ing chance to flat­ten the (virus’) curve. We’ll on­ly get through this if every­body abides by the ad­vice be­ing giv­en by our med­ical ex­perts,” Young said at Fri­day’s press con­fer­ence, where the Health Min­istry con­firmed a sec­ond COVID pa­tient - an el­der­ly per­son with pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions - had died.

T&T now has 66 cas­es with 453 sam­ples be­ing test­ed. Forty-sev­en of the 66 came from the group which re­cent­ly re­turned from a Caribbean cruise. But one pa­tient has test­ed neg­a­tive and been dis­charged must now self-iso­late for a sev­en-day pe­ri­od.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said this week­end is the ‘tip­ping point” on how the case­load moves - par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing the 19,000-odd peo­ple who re­turned from abroad re­cent­ly.

Fol­low­ing the first COVID-19 death on Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced a “deep­en­ing” of cur­tail­ing of non-es­sen­tial op­er­a­tions un­til April 15. It’s not a state of emer­gency or lock­down but law en­force­ment is em­pow­ered to deal with those who vi­o­late laws and mea­sures and they’ll be polic­ing the “Stay Home” ef­fort firm­ly, Young said.

He added, “We ‘ve done this on med­ical ex­perts’ ad­vice to pro­tect the pub­lic and con­tain so­cial con­tact. It’s not busi­ness as usu­al. Per­sons shouldn’t be at work un­less in es­sen­tial busi­ness­es - even then, on­ly es­sen­tial work­ers. All work­ers should work from home.

“Not be­cause you’re an es­sen­tial busi­ness, you should have all em­ploy­ees at work. Scale back, I sug­gest com­pa­nies is­sue let­ters to var­i­ous work­ers.”

The long list of es­sen­tial busi­ness­es in­cludes cor­ner shops, gro­ceries, dis­count and con­ve­nience stores - like Prices­mart - which sup­ply food, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and oth­er sup­plies. He said no more than 10 peo­ple would be al­lowed in gro­ceries and phar­ma­cies at a time - but so­cial dis­tanc­ing must be main­tained.

Min­istries and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions will re­main open, as well as In­land Rev­enue, Trea­sury, Cen­tral Bank and Cus­toms/Ex­cise. All oth­er Gov­ern­ment ser­vices will close. Young said min­istries and cor­po­ra­tions will ex­am­ine and de­cide on es­sen­tial ser­vices and those who can work from home.

Oth­er ser­vices con­tin­u­ing in­clude the mag­is­tra­cy, ju­di­cia­ry, In­dus­tri­al Court and le­gal ser­vices. Par­lia­ment, Cab­i­net and Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee meet­ings and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly meet­ings. All emer­gency and pro­tec­tive ser­vices con­tin­ue, as well as util­i­ty, san­i­ta­tion, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, homes for the el­der­ly, re­hab cen­tres and fu­ner­al homes.

NL­CB games shelved un­til April 15

Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board op­er­a­tions will be sus­pend­ed un­til April 15, ex­er­cis­ing out­doors is banned and fur­ni­ture, cloth­ing, cloth and up­hol­stery stores don’t fall un­der es­sen­tial ser­vices, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young not­ed.

Young said Cab­i­net on Thurs­day took med­ical ad­vice and de­cid­ed all pub­lic trans­port in taxis, max­is and bus­es be lim­it­ed to 50 per cent of ca­pac­i­ty.

“There’s a lev­el of ex­po­sure with dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties which we’re try­ing to re­duce. Don’t let maxi or taxi dri­vers force peo­ple to oc­cu­py more than 50 per cent of these ve­hi­cles,” he said.

He said there’ll be height­ened vig­i­lance on the over­all ef­fort.

“Peo­ple will be sent back home if they don’t be­long to es­sen­tial ser­vices. The po­lice and army will ‘po­lice’ this. So every­body out there, please walk with IDs- you’ll have to jus­ti­fy to any law en­force­ment who asks where you’re go­ing.”

Young said po­lice will first use per­sua­sive pow­er. But he added the ul­ti­mate penal­ty can be fines up to $50,000 and six months’ jail.

“There’ll be a lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty but you’ll have to prove to po­lice you’re in the es­sen­tial sec­tor or are go­ing to the phar­ma­cy, hard­ware or to col­lect food.”