Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh dodged ques­tions con­cern­ing video footage that showed there were pos­si­ble breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions at a So­ca con­cert at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Deyals­ingh was be­ing ques­tioned on Sat­ur­day at a vir­tu­al Min­istry of Health me­dia con­fer­ence.

“The op­er­a­tion of safe zones and the con­di­tions to be ap­plied are clear­ly list­ed in the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions about mask­ing ex­cept if you are eat­ing or drink­ing ca­pac­i­ty at 50 per cent. The ac­tu­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the op­er­a­tion of safe zones lies with the own­er/op­er­a­tor who is car­ry­ing on the event. The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions lies with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (T&TPS),” he said, re­spond­ing to a ques­tion about if the Min­istry of Health is con­cerned about breach­es of the health reg­u­la­tions at these car­ni­val events.

Dur­ing the ques­tion and an­swer seg­ment when Deyals­ingh was al­so asked how of­ten do the au­thor­i­ties re­view the rules for the safe zones and if he is sat­is­fied that the reg­u­la­tions are be­ing ad­hered to, he replied again that the en­force­ment of the safe zone pol­i­cy is for the TTPS and the spon­sor of the event to mon­i­tor.

“Yes, we con­stant­ly re­view every­thing un­der the re­mit of the Min­istry of Health, whether it is the safe zone pol­i­cy, our hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion num­bers, so it is a con­stant re­cal­i­bra­tion to look at all the da­ta avail­able. We make de­ci­sions. Like last week, we made de­ci­sions to al­low the un­der 12s who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed to go back to the safe zones. So there is a con­stant re­view.”

Ac­cord­ing to a Guardian Me­dia re­port on Sat­ur­day, de­spite the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice say­ing that they saw no breach­es of health reg­u­la­tions, the video and pho­tos of the show “Vibes with Voicey” were sub­ject to strong con­dem­na­tion by many on so­cial me­dia, with many pre­dict­ing a post-Car­ni­val spike in COVID-19 cas­es as a re­sult of the ac­tiv­i­ty.

The con­cert on Thurs­day was head­lined by Aaron “Voice” St Louis and fea­tured per­for­mances by Na­dia Bat­son, Nailah Black­man, Mi­cal Te­ja, GBM Nu­tron, Farmer Nap­py, Lyrikal, KI, and Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Kra­ni­um.

Thou­sands at­tend­ed the event and many were not wear­ing masks and ad­her­ing to health reg­u­la­tions.

On Fri­day, St Louis’ man­ag­er, Lyn­don Gomez said that the Thurs­day night show was safe but there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment.

An­oth­er car­ni­val event pro­mot­er de­fend­ed the high safe­ty stan­dards at their events.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Strate­gist for the project Sea­son 22 and Sound Forge Leisel Dou­glas told the Sun­day Guardian they are host­ing sev­en events for sev­en nights for the Car­ni­val sea­son. They have com­plet­ed four events to date, she said, and all their events have been suc­cess­ful and have ad­hered to all the health reg­u­la­tions.

“We have had no in­ci­dents. Our pa­trons are re­spect­ful of the guide­lines put in place and they are ad­her­ing to them. They need to wash their hands and are ush­ered to their seats. We are a safe zone so eat­ing and drink­ing can take place in their seats.”

On Fri­day night they did a show at Sound Forge, Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James, en­ti­tled “Show­down” that fo­cused on ca­lyp­so and pan with guest artistes such as Sher­wyne Win­ches­ter, Joshua Re­grel­lo and Cro Cro.

Sun­day Guardian reached out to the Act­ing Com­mi­sison­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob for a com­ment on the mat­ter but he did not re­ply.