Gail Alexan­der

It’s of­fi­cial: Car­ni­val 2021 has been “killed” by COVID-19.

And un­less Gov­ern­ment’s ne­go­ti­a­tions with Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies for the Guaracara re­fin­ery are com­plet­ed by end of next month, that deal will be “dead “ al­so and new op­tions will have to be sought.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the two de­vel­op­ments yes­ter­day at the end of the 2021 Bud­get Fo­rum at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain. The event was host­ed by Gov­ern­ment to de­liv­er in­for­ma­tion on T&T’s eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances ahead of the Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 5.

In an ad­dress be­fore the event, Row­ley said dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions were in­volved in the Bud­get but as­sured cer­tain pri­or­i­ties would be main­tained. In an­oth­er speech at the end of the fo­rum, he clar­i­fied var­i­ous as­pects which arose in dis­cus­sion, in­clud­ing Car­ni­val 2021, the re­fin­ery deal, plans to en­cour­age project man­age­ment com­pa­nies, pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion im­ple­men­ta­tion and TSTT.

Car­ni­val 2021 was sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary and Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment that it “fall­en vic­tim” to COVID came in re­sponse to a query from a fo­rum mem­ber about the fes­ti­val.

“In 72 hours we’ll be in Oc­to­ber and if at this time in Oc­to­ber we’re still in the throes of a pan­dem­ic, it would be mad­ness to be talk­ing about Car­ni­val…in Feb­ru­ary,” Row­ley said.

“I see no fu­ture for Car­ni­val in Trinidad and To­ba­go in the months ahead. And to­day I can put every­one on no­tice that un­less there is some dra­mat­ic wind that will blow across us where­by by Christ­mas, COVID would be a thing of the past—Car­ni­val 2021 is not on.”

He added, “Pic­ture J’Ou­vert but with the coro­n­avirus still a ma­jor is­sue not on­ly in T&T but in the world around us - it’s just not on. Let us be thank­ful we’re still alive to see each oth­er’s face.”

He called on cit­i­zens to re­mem­ber what this coun­try passed through in 1918. In 1918, T&T was among coun­tries hit by the Span­ish flu pan­dem­ic, one of the most se­vere in his­to­ry. An es­ti­mat­ed 500 mil­lion peo­ple were in­fect­ed glob­al­ly with 50 mil­lion deaths. It was caused by an H1N1 virus and it was lat­er found that flu re­duced ed­u­ca­tion­al at­tain­ments among pop­u­la­tions.

Row­ley al­so asked for cit­i­zens to see and un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing with coun­tries which couldn’t con­trol the virus spread among their pop­u­la­tions.”

He added, “And in those ex­am­i­na­tions and re­view (of those sit­u­a­tions) where Car­ni­val is the per­fect en­vi­ron­ment for spread­ing of this virus, Car­ni­val is not some­thing we can coun­te­nance now.

“This de­ci­sion I know will have se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic knock-on ef­fects but by the same to­ken we can’t hope to gain on that swing and die on the mer­ry-go-round.”

His news was met with as­sort­ed re­spons­es from Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers—in­clud­ing so­cial me­dia artistes. Sev­er­al peo­ple im­me­di­ate­ly post­ed memes with Row­ley’s Car­ni­val can­cel­la­tion an­nounce­ment.

The can­cel­la­tion will be the third time in his­to­ry that T&T’s Car­ni­val has been shelved for some calami­tous event. The first time Car­ni­val was post­poned was dur­ing World War II. In 1972, Car­ni­val was al­so post­poned for at least three months be­cause of a po­lio out­break that claimed lives.

It was es­ti­mat­ed the post­pone­ment cost the is­land about $2.35 mil­lion in tourist rev­enues, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal busi­ness lead­ers.

Then Health Min­is­ter Fran­cis Pre­vatt, now de­ceased, an­nounced the post­pone­ment was “to al­low a na­tion­wide po­lio im­mu­niza­tion pro­gramme to take its full ef­fect.”