Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced new re­stric­tions that will last for at least 28 days as the coun­try con­tin­ues to face the rise in coro­n­avirus cas­es.

It comes on a day in which the Min­istry of Health an­nounced 48 new cas­es from batch test­ing, tak­ing the num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es in T&T since the start of the virus, to 474. Ten peo­ple have died.

Be­gin­ning Mon­day morn­ing, all in-house din­ing in restau­rants and bars will cease, in­clud­ing at food courts and malls. This will in­clude the precincts of those es­tab­lish­ments.

Take-away ser­vices, how­ev­er, will be al­lowed to con­tin­ue.

Beach­es and rivers will close.

All places of wor­ship will al­so close.

All gyms will close.

All con­tact sports will cease.

Wa­ter­parks will close.

Casi­nos and mem­bers clubs will re­main closed.

Cin­e­mas will be closed.

Au­tho­rised gath­er­ings of peo­ple out­side of homes will not be more than 5 peo­ple.

Wed­dings, fu­ner­als, chris­ten­ings and so on will be al­lowed with no more than 10 peo­ple.

Max­is and taxis will op­er­ate at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

Air and sea-bridge trans­porta­tion to and from To­ba­go will be re­strict­ed to es­sen­tial peo­ple.

All teach­ing in­sti­tu­tions will re­main closed un­til this phase is over. The prime min­is­ter said it ap­pears at this stage the Gov­ern­ment will like­ly have to shut down schools for the rest of the year.

SEA ex­am­i­na­tions will con­tin­ue on Au­gust 20 but stu­dents must not con­gre­gate.

Bar­ber­shops and hair­dress­ing sa­lons will be al­lowed to stay open once COVID guide­lines are com­plied with. He said this is an area in which com­pli­ance has been very good.

Dr Row­ley said the gov­ern­ment is con­sult­ing with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the mo­ment and will in­di­cate in 48 hours what ac­tion is nec­es­sary for manda­to­ry use of face­masks.

He said it’s like­ly that ac­tion will be tak­en against peo­ple who in­sist on not wear­ing masks in pub­lic and the gov­ern­ment will cease to re­ly on sua­sion and make it an of­fence.

The prime min­is­ter said if these ac­tions are not tak­en then the num­bers we are re­port­ing now will be small to what can oc­cur in a fort­night.

“We are now in a po­si­tion where we have to act so as not to get sucked in­to an ac­tion that is far worst,” he said.

He called on all to work to­geth­er to fight the virus, say­ing that any fur­ther lock-down of the econ­o­my will have a ma­jor im­pact on the econ­o­my, af­fect­ing all.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said that the coun­try has moved from Lo­cal Spread to Com­mu­ni­ty Spread.

Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor, Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Di­vi­sion at the Min­istry of Health, Dr Av­ery Hinds added that peo­ple are now be­ing af­fect­ed by peo­ple who they do not know.

He re­in­forced the need for peo­ple to stay home from work when ill. He said there are no spe­cif­ic places where cas­es are turn­ing up more than oth­ers.