Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced that from to­mor­row all schools and uni­ver­si­ties and places of learn­ing will re­main close for one week in or­der to stop the spread of coro­n­avirus.

The an­nounce­ment was made as he ad­dressed the Par­lia­ment to­day.

The fol­low­ing is the prime min­is­ter's state­ment in Par­lia­ment:

"Col­leagues, fel­low cit­i­zens,

It is in times like these that we de­fine who we are as a peo­ple. We are cur­rent­ly fac­ing two glob­al phe­nom­e­na that af­fect us di­rect­ly and are both large­ly out­side of our realm of con­trol. The first is the wide­spread pres­ence and dele­te­ri­ous ef­fects of COVID 19, com­mon­ly known as the Coro­n­avirus. The sec­ond is the se­ri­ous glob­al dis­rup­tion in the prices of oil, gas and en­er­gy-based prod­ucts that the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket places are fac­ing and re­spond­ing to in ways that are, in many in­stances, un­prece­dent­ed.

COVID 19 first came to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty’s at­ten­tion in De­cem­ber 2019 when word got out of the crip­pling ef­fects and alarm­ing spread that was tak­ing place in the Chi­nese city of Wuhan. The rest of the world looked on as the rapid spread of this virus took place in Chi­na and we watched the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment’s re­ac­tion to con­tain and treat the cas­es that were mul­ti­ply­ing at an alarm­ing rate.

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan its mon­i­tor­ing of the virus and the Min­istry of Health, as the ap­pro­pri­ate body, kept the Gov­ern­ment in­formed of the ef­fects and spread of the virus. The Min­istry of Health through its re­la­tion­ships with in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies, for ex­am­ple, PA­HO and WHO, ob­tained the lat­est in­for­ma­tion avail­able on the virus and con­tin­ued its ac­tive mon­i­tor­ing, ad­vis­ing the Gov­ern­ment at every step of the way.

We in Trinidad and To­ba­go have al­ways been at the fore­front of de­ci­sion- mak­ing with re­spect to how we pro­tect our cit­i­zens and shores and we were one of the first coun­tries in the world to take the proac­tive de­ci­sion to im­pose trav­el re­stric­tions in an ef­fort to pre­vent the en­try and re­strict the spread of this virus. On Jan­u­ary 30, 2020 the Cab­i­net took the de­ci­sion to im­pose trav­el re­stric­tions on any­one who had been in Chi­na for a 14 days pe­ri­od pri­or to their ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We im­posed the re­stric­tion that any non-na­tion­al who had been in Chi­na for a pe­ri­od of 14 days pri­or to their ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go would not be per­mit­ted en­try and any na­tion­al or res­i­dent who fell in­to this cat­e­go­ry would be quar­an­tined un­til it was clear that they were not af­fect­ed by COVID 19. Trinidad and To­ba­go was the first coun­try in the West­ern Hemi­sphere to take this de­ci­sion and was one of the first coun­tries in the world to take any such proac­tive step to pro­tect its shores and cit­i­zens. This and sim­i­lar or even more dras­tic re­spons­es are now com­mon­place and world­wide.

The mea­sures put in place at our in­ter­na­tion­al air­ports and ma­jor ports of en­try in­clud­ed the screen­ing of pas­sen­gers, this again was based on the ad­vice of our med­ical ex­perts who we have been tak­ing ad­vice from at all ma­te­r­i­al times. Ther­mal screen­ing was im­ple­ment­ed as well as a mon­i­tor­ing of pas­sen­ger man­i­fests by the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices cen­ter in Bar­ba­dos, the re­gion­al cen­ter set up for these types of mat­ters.

As the virus be­gan to spread out of Chi­na and oth­er coun­tries be­gan to be af­fect­ed in the fol­low­ing weeks we con­tin­ued to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion through the Min­istry of Health. At all times the Min­istry of Health was keep­ing the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty briefed on the de­vel­op­ments around COVID 19.

On Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020, the Min­is­ter of Health and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter met with Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials and of­fi­cials from PA­HO and CARPHA for sci­en­tif­ic and op­er­a­tional up­dates on the spread of the virus that was now tak­ing place rapid­ly in coun­tries out­side of Chi­na and ad­vice was re­ceived from our health of­fi­cials about the ex­tend­ing of the trav­el re­stric­tions to five oth­er coun­tries, oth­er than Chi­na.

On Feb­ru­ary 27, 2020 the Cab­i­net took a num­ber of de­ci­sions in­clud­ing the adding of Iran, South Ko­rea, Italy, Sin­ga­pore and Japan to the list of des­ig­nat­ed coun­tries that we would not per­mit non-na­tion­als or res­i­dents en­try to Trinidad and To­ba­go if they had been in any of these coun­tries for 14 days pri­or. Again, we were one of the first coun­tries in the world to take this de­ci­sion there­by pro­tect­ing our coun­try for that much longer. The Cab­i­net al­so de­cid­ed that the ad­di­tion­al coun­tries could be added to the des­ig­nat­ed list by the Min­is­ter of Health af­ter his con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

We con­tin­ue to keep mon­i­tor­ing coun­tries and as­sess and re­assess them based on the de­clared rate of in­fec­tion. This type of in­for­ma­tion has been chang­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly on a dai­ly ba­sis as a re­sult of which we may have even now to add more coun­tries such as Switzer­land and Nor­way to the list of re­strict­ed sources, giv­en their re­port­ed rates of in­fec­tion. Giv­en the free­dom of move­ment with­in West­ern Eu­rope this ap­proach may even be­come ob­so­lete in the near fu­ture.

An In­ter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee was al­so set up to re­port to the Min­is­ter of Health and the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to be chaired by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, this com­mit­tee dri­ve our prepa­ra­tion for and re­sponse to COVID 19, in ac­cor­dance with WHO guide­lines.

The mem­ber­ship of this Com­mit­tee in­clud­ed, the Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, ODPM, Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Min­istry of Fi­nance, Min­istry of Tourism, Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, TEMA, Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­deed, a whole of Gov­ern­ment re­sponse. The Min­istry of Labour and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vices were sub­se­quent­ly added to the com­mit­tee. This com­mit­tee has been meet­ing and dri­ving the coun­try’s prepa­ra­tion and re­sponse to the virus.

The Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to in­crease the ded­i­cat­ed hos­pi­tal re­sources to re­spond to the pos­si­bil­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with the virus reach­ing us. We im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan out­fit­ting the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal for treat­ing per­sons who may be­come af­fect­ed. The Cau­ra hos­pi­tal and the COSTATT build­ing at the POS Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were al­so iden­ti­fied for in­creas­ing the ar­eas to treat with COVID 19.

In the mean­time, we saw what was hap­pen­ing in the world. The spread of the virus was hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects on the glob­al econ­o­my as Chi­na, the sec­ond largest econ­o­my in the world had to cut back sig­nif­i­cant­ly on its con­sump­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing. This af­fect­ed amongst oth­er things, oil and gas com­modi­ties and their prices. The de­mand for LNG and Methanol were two di­rect­ly af­fect­ed com­modi­ties both of which make up the main­stay of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy in­dus­try prod­ucts, with con­se­quen­tial ef­fects on our rev­enue.

The virus was al­so neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing coun­tries in very fast man­ners. We saw what hap­pened to South Ko­rea, Italy, Iran and oth­er coun­tries. We al­so ob­served what hap­pened to a num­ber of cruise ships around the world and how rapid­ly the virus spread and the fa­tal­i­ties to the old­er peo­ple con­tract­ing the virus and some of the more vul­ner­a­ble.

The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to take de­ci­sion to pro­tect us in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Min­is­ters of Health and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty dur­ing the pe­ri­od of time, turned away at least two cruis­es ships from com­ing to Trinidad be­cause there was ev­i­dence to sug­gest that per­sons on board were not well.

In the rest of the world we con­tin­ued to see the spread of the virus, coun­tries in Eu­rope be­gan to re­port in­creas­ing af­fect­ed per­sons, in the Unit­ed King­dom, Ger­many, France, Spain, and oth­er Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, South Amer­i­can coun­tries were be­ing af­fect­ed and it meant that the virus was get­ting clos­er to home.

Our prepa­ra­tions con­tin­ued here in Trinidad and To­ba­go and we al­so pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance for test­ing via CARPHA, us­ing our re­sources to get the sam­ples to CARPHA for oth­er CARI­COM coun­tries.

At the CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos COVID 19 and its ef­fects was an agen­da items and we dis­cussed it as a re­gion.

We have sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness with many of the af­fect­ed coun­tries. We have many di­rect dai­ly flights to the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and even dai­ly flights to the Unit­ed King­dom. We have di­rect flights to one of the largest hubs in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, i.e. Pana­ma.

We have seen how dif­fer­ent coun­tries have re­act­ed and tak­en dif­fer­ent steps and the crit­i­cism of some about the lack of ac­tion by much big­ger coun­tries than us.

Dur­ing my first ad­dress to you at a press con­fer­ence at the be­gin­ning of this pe­ri­od of chal­lenge I did point out to you that what we were fac­ing was not just a health is­sue but if it plays out as it por­tends then there will be very se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic ex­po­sures for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, ex­act­ly that out­come has now come to pass and the ef­fects are up­on us. As a na­tion we have no choice but to steel our­selves and step up to the de­mands of the sit­u­a­tion.

Just this week we have seen the spread­ing of the virus in the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope. We are wit­ness­ing the roller­coast­er re­sults of the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket­place and the re­ac­tion of clos­ing mas­sive theme parks, schools, uni­ver­si­ties; mas­sive flight and cruise ship can­cel­la­tions and cer­tain coun­tries de­clar­ing states of emer­gency: the can­cel­la­tion of the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion league and oth­er ma­jor sport­ing events. The For­mu­la One Grand Prix card­ed for this week­end has been can­celled. The Ital­ian Foot­ball league can­celled. The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States has sus­pend­ed all flights from Eu­rope, save for the UK, to the Unit­ed States from mid­night tonight for a pe­ri­od of time. A US Con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion vis­it that was due to ar­rive here next Wednes­day has been post­poned.

These are some of the re­ac­tions to the virus that we are see­ing world­wide.

This week on my re­turn from Ghana and the UK I an­nounced that af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and me, the Min­is­ter of Health was adding Spain, France and Ger­many to the list of des­ig­nat­ed coun­tries with trav­el re­stric­tions.

We al­so got news of the virus be­ing con­firmed in Ja­maica, Guyana, Cu­ba, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and St Vin­cent, all close to home. At least one of these con­fir­ma­tions has passed through our coun­try and has used our air ser­vices at CAL. So for all prac­ti­cal pur­pose we have been touched.

Yes­ter­day, the un­for­tu­nate in­evitable hap­pened and we con­firmed our first case of COVID 19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go, a busi­ness­man who trav­elled to Switzer­land and re­turned to Trinidad on Mon­day. For­tu­nate­ly, he self- iso­lat­ed and did not leave his house. When he be­gan to feel ill on Wednes­day and con­tact­ed pub­lic health he and his fam­i­ly were quar­an­tined.

Our pro­to­cols have been op­er­a­tional­ized for some time now. We had test­ed over fifty cas­es and this is the first one that test­ed pos­i­tive. Con­tact trac­ing is tak­ing place. Our pro­fes­sion­als have been and are han­dling the sit­u­a­tion and sit­u­a­tions.

At this stage giv­en our stat­ed ob­jec­tives the Gov­ern­ment will ad­vise that from to­mor­row all schools and Uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er places of learn­ing would re­main closed for one week in the first in­stance in or­der to slow the po­ten­tial spread of any in­fec­tion that might be with us at this time.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there con­tin­ue to be those in our so­ci­ety who in­sist on act­ing ir­re­spon­si­bly and spread­ing false in­for­ma­tion. The Gov­ern­ment has at all time act­ed with full trans­paren­cy and will con­tin­ue to do so and I urge all our peo­ple to act re­spon­si­bly and not spread false in­for­ma­tion and at­tempt to cre­ate mis­chief which could on­ly have the ef­fect of cre­at­ing a sense of pan­ic, which would be the worst state to be in as we con­front these chal­lenges.

The Gov­ern­ment has ad­vised a num­ber of self -im­posed cau­tion­ary mea­sures that will slow down, de­lay and pos­si­bly pre­vent the spread of the virus. Do not ex­pose your­self un­nec­es­sar­i­ly through non-es­sen­tial mass gath­er­ing. Lim­it your ex­po­sure to pub­lic places. On­ly trav­el if es­sen­tial or it is an emer­gency. Prac­tise good per­son­al hy­giene habits such as more fre­quent wash­ing of your hands, avoid touch­ing your faces with un­washed hands, sneeze and cough in­to tis­sue and prop­er­ly dis­pose of the tis­sue. Clean and dis­in­fect fre­quent­ly touched ob­jects and sur­faces.

Be sen­si­ble about not ex­pos­ing frail se­niors or peo­ple with oth­er health con­di­tions to res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness.

Peo­ple should stay at home if gen­uine­ly suf­fer­ing from a res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness. This is not a pass to sky­lark and evade your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and play smart as an em­ploy­ee.

Pro­mote a work­place cul­ture that sup­ports peo­ple stay­ing at home when gen­uine­ly sick.

Try and avoid in­fect­ing oth­er peo­ple at the house­hold and out­side of the home.

Man­agers and busi­ness own­ers should im­ple­ment re­al­is­tic sick leave poli­cies. Be flex­i­ble with work­place arrange­ments.

Al­low peo­ple to work from home where fea­si­ble and act on Pub­lic Health rec­om­men­da­tions.

I im­plore you not to en­gage in pan­ic buy­ing as this would on­ly cre­ate short­ages of ma­te­ri­als which should be wide­ly avail­able. Lis­ten care­ful­ly to the di­rec­tives giv­en by those in au­thor­i­ty as we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide you with all the cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion that we have and is­sue guide­lines for your safe­ty and ben­e­fit.

A num­ber of pri­vate schools have closed to san­tise and al­so as a mat­ter of pre­cau­tion. We will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion which as you know is very flu­id.

The Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer and Head of CARPHA, The Min­istries of Health and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will con­tin­ue to present, on a dai­ly ba­sis, in­for­ma­tion and re­ports on ac­tu­al prepa­ra­tions that have been tak­ing place both op­er­a­tional­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment has ini­ti­at­ed an analy­sis of the short term eco­nom­ic im­pact of the epi­dem­ic with rec­om­men­da­tions for Gov­ern­ment ac­tions and this will be ac­com­pa­nied by a study on the longer term ef­fects of the COVID 19 on the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In the mean­time, I urge cit­i­zens to be re­spon­si­ble and to act with re­straint as we nav­i­gate this pe­ri­od of the chang­ing and the un­known. Your Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to do all that it can to en­sure the wider pub­lic safe­ty and pro­tec­tion.

To­geth­er we must con­front these chal­lenges and to­geth­er we must act with con­fi­dence that what­ev­er it takes to­geth­er we will do it and to­geth­er we will over­come.

Thank you Madam Speak­er."