RISHARD KHAN

The Bar­keep­ers' and Own­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (BOATT) is call­ing for more busi­ness­es to be in­clud­ed as "Safe Zones", which can on­ly be ac­cessed by ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple. It asks that all nonessen­tial re­tail busi­ness­es and the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor be brought un­der the ini­tia­tive.

The move, the as­so­ci­a­tion's ex­ec­u­tive team said in a press re­lease, will not on­ly ad­dress safe­ty dur­ing this cur­rent wave of in­fec­tions but al­so in­crease vac­ci­na­tion up­take.

The as­so­ci­a­tion echoed the sen­ti­ments shared by health ex­perts glob­al­ly, that "vac­ci­na­tion is the on­ly way out of this dol­drum that we are in present­ly".

How­ev­er, it not­ed while the gov­ern­ment has done its part by pro­vid­ing the pop­u­la­tion with easy ac­cess to four dif­fer­ent brands of World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) ap­proved vac­cines, it "now needs to make the fi­nal tough de­ci­sion that is in­evitable".

"While vac­ci­na­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains vol­un­tary, to­geth­er with the gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that links vac­ci­na­tion lev­els with the re­open­ing of dif­fer­ent busi­ness sec­tors and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties, the in­di­vid­ual choice of the un­vac­ci­nat­ed are deny­ing the en­tire pop­u­la­tion the right to earn an in­come and en­joy the won­ders that Trinidad and To­ba­go has to of­fer," BOATT said.

"This prac­tice should not be con­doned nor en­cour­aged, the choice to be un­vac­ci­nat­ed amongst the pop­u­la­tion is the on­ly rea­son busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als are not al­lowed to func­tion as they should and are hin­dered from con­tin­u­ing with their reg­u­lar rou­tines. This de­ci­sion has al­lowed the choice of the un­vac­ci­nat­ed to dic­tate and ba­si­cal­ly hold the coun­try to ran­som and cit­i­zens can and should not be de­nied the right to earn an in­come and en­joy the nat­ur­al beau­ty of our twin-is­land re­pub­lic based on such."

The as­so­ci­a­tion said lock­downs and se­vere re­stric­tions should be a thing of the past.

"The world is mov­ing for­ward and adapt­ing to liv­ing with COVID-19 whilst bal­anc­ing lives and liveli­hoods and, as such, we see ab­solute­ly no rea­son why Trinidad and To­ba­go must be held back by the de­ci­sions of peo­ple who are hell-bent on caus­ing dis­rup­tion in our beloved coun­try," it said.

"The Bar­keep­ers & Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT) is will­ing to work with and sup­port all stake­hold­ers and busi­ness en­ti­ties who share na­tion-build­ing goals, ideas, and ini­tia­tives, we can on­ly achieve this by team­work, prop­er con­sul­ta­tion, and an un­bi­ased eq­ui­table de­ci­sion-mak­ing process."

Since the Safe Zone ini­tia­tive was launched on Oc­to­ber 11, the Min­istry of Health has not tied any out­breaks or clus­ters of COVID-19 cas­es to these venues.