SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@

guardian.co.tt

Even as the coun­try pre­pared yes­ter­day for the newest phase of COVID-19 lock­down re­stric­tions - which go in­to ef­fect from to­day - an­oth­er per­son died from the virus yes­ter­day and 55 more peo­ple had test­ed pos­i­tive, tak­ing the over­all num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es so far in T&T to 552.

The lat­est vic­tim is a 41-year-old man from South Trinidad. In its 10 am up­date yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health said the man had pre-ex­ist­ing med­ical con­di­tions. On Fri­day, two peo­ple- an el­der­ly woman and a man- died from the virus.

De­spite this con­tin­u­ing up­ward trend in cas­es and deaths and a warn­ing on Sat­ur­day to the pub­lic to avoid leav­ing home un­less ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary, hun­dreds of peo­ple yes­ter­day flocked to beach­es, rivers and bars for what was deemed by many as last lap limes be­fore to­day’s new re­stric­tions kick in.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh said he was dis­ap­point­ed but not sur­prised by the large crowds at beach­es across the coun­try.

“I know Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans and ex­act­ly what I feared came to pass, it’s just that cer­tain sec­tors of the pop­u­la­tion don’t un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion that we are in and whilst most of the pop­u­la­tion be­haves re­spon­si­bly, it is that mi­nor­i­ty that does not get the mes­sage, doesn’t hear the mes­sage, that will en­dan­ger the whole so­ci­ety,” he said.

Deyals­ingh re­it­er­at­ed that the lock­down was ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary be­cause there is now com­mu­ni­ty spread of the virus.

“With com­mu­ni­ty spread, we have to have height­ened vig­i­lance and few­er peo­ple mov­ing be­cause what the virus preys on is the move­ment of peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly where peo­ple are in set­tings where they have close con­tact,” he said, not­ing the co­op­er­a­tion and dis­ci­pline of the pub­lic go­ing for­ward will be crit­i­cal to curb­ing the spread.

He said if the num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es con­tin­ue to rise as they have done over the last ten days, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that more strict reg­u­la­tions will have to be en­forced.

Ear­li­er this year, the Gov­ern­ment or­dered all non-es­sen­tial busi­ness­es to close in an ef­fort to re­strict the spread of the virus.

While this lock­down is not as re­stric­tive as those be­fore, Deyals­ingh said he hopes it can stem the re­cent spike in cas­es. He said the virus is go­ing to be around for the fore­see­able fu­ture as the world still waits for an ef­fec­tive vac­cine or treat­ment to be de­vel­oped.

Com­ment­ing on the van­dal­ism of the Guardian Me­dia build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day by an­ti-COVID group The Re­sis­tance, Deyals­ingh said their ac­tions can be­come a dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment. He said the wait for a vac­cine gives these con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists fu­el to con­tin­ue to spread their “rant­i­ngs” and he ap­pealed to the pub­lic to pay them no mind.

“There will be peo­ple who ex­ist in al­ter­nate re­al­i­ties and don’t have a full grasp on what the world is fac­ing with the coro­n­avirus. As a per­son who has to man­age the pub­lic re­sponse, this is a very dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment. I can on­ly ap­peal to the pub­lic not to give in to these the­o­ries and as the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter says, let the sci­ence con­tin­ue to guide us,” Deyals­ingh said.