Camille McEach­nie

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis has con­demned the per­sons who breached COVID-19 rules at an event held by a THA Di­vi­sion last Fri­day.

In a fol­low-up mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue, Den­nis con­firmed that the event took place at the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance. How­ev­er, he said it was not a par­ty.

De­spite this, he said, “The ac­tions and ac­tiv­i­ties that I saw in that video were very un­nec­es­sary and ir­re­spon­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly on the part of pub­lic ser­vants.

“We have been ask­ing this coun­try, this pop­u­la­tion, to wear a mask to so­cial dis­tance and to not en­gage in any kind of ac­tiv­i­ty that could cause this virus to spread. Based on what I saw in that video ...it cre­ates the per­fect en­vi­ron­ment ...for COVID-19 to wreak hav­oc.”

He said the be­hav­iour of the in­di­vid­u­als in the video could jeop­ar­dise lives, the health care sys­tem and the econ­o­my.

He al­so said he was “dis­ap­point­ed” in the per­sons’ ac­tions and again called on “To­bag­o­ni­ans to re­sist the temp­ta­tion to en­gage in those kinds of ac­tiv­i­ties.”

He end­ed the voice note by say­ing, “I am ask­ing peo­ple to be more re­spon­si­ble and not en­gage in the kind of dotish­ness that all of us saw in that video.”

The sit­u­a­tion came to light last Fri­day when an ap­prox­i­mate­ly two-minute video was post­ed on so­cial me­dia show­ing scores of peo­ple gath­ered in an of­fice set­ting, danc­ing as they sang nurs­ery rhymes. Many of them were with­out masks and were near to each oth­er in clear breach of COVID pro­to­cols.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment’s coro­n­avirus reg­u­la­tions, crowd sizes should be 10 or less and peo­ple should so­cial dis­tance and wear masks in a pub­lic place.