An­na-Lisa Paul

As T&T read­ies it­self to of­fi­cial­ly re­open its bor­ders on Ju­ly 17, na­tion­als who have been stuck abroad since March 2020 will no longer have to ap­ply for an ex­emp­tion to re-en­ter the coun­try, but will have to sat­is­fy the strin­gent re­quire­ments laid down by the Min­istry of Health (MoH).

As she re­as­sured na­tion­als that they have noth­ing to fear from pas­sen­gers com­ing from ter­ri­to­ries where var­i­ous strains of the virus have been de­tect­ed, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards said T&T has thor­ough and com­pre­hen­sive screen­ing pro­ce­dures in place.

A repa­tri­a­tion flight ex­pect­ed from Bar­ba­dos to­day where at least three dif­fer­ent strains of the virus have been con­firmed.

Ab­dool-Richards said it was main­ly stu­dents that would be re­turn­ing home.

Speak­ing dur­ing the MoH’s me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, she out­lined the re­quire­ments re­turn­ing na­tion­als had to sat­is­fy which in­clud­ed be­ing in pos­ses­sion of a neg­a­tive PCR test 72 hours pri­or to ar­riv­ing in the T&T.

She said ill peo­ple would be de­nied en­try to the air­craft at the point of board­ing and added that there is a manda­to­ry re­quire­ment for all pas­sen­gers to be masked and be so­cial­ly dis­tanced on the flight.

Bar­ba­dos’ Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ken­neth George on Sun­day re­vealed that of the 18 sam­ples they had test­ed they were able to con­firm nine cas­es of the Al­pha strain, three of the Delta strain, and three of the Gam­ma strain.

The Delta strain is the mu­ta­tion that was iden­ti­fied in In­dia while the Al­pha strain is the mu­ta­tion iden­ti­fied in the UK. The Gam­ma mu­ta­tion was iden­ti­fied in Brazil.

Re­turn­ing na­tion­als who will be placed at state-su­per­vised fa­cil­i­ties or as­signed spaces at state-op­er­at­ed out­fits will on­ly be al­lowed to go home on the sixth day once they test neg­a­tive for the virus.

Neg­a­tive peo­ple will be al­lowed to com­plete the 14-day quar­an­tine at home while pos­i­tive in­di­vid­u­als will be trans­ferred to a par­al­lel health fa­cil­i­ty.

Asked if any cas­es of the Delta strain had been con­firmed in T&T thus far, Ab­dool-Richards said, “As of now there are no con­firmed cas­es of the Delta vari­ant in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”