The cur­tail­ment of op­er­a­tions for some sec­tors has been ex­tend­ed to April 30.

The Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est COVID-19 mea­sure has man­dat­ed that bars, church­es and sim­i­lar places, as well as air and sea­ports re­main closed un­til April 30. And taxis and bus­es must con­tin­ue car­ry­ing half pas­sen­ger loads un­til then al­so.

This is stat­ed in the Health Min­istry’s Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance to curb virus spread is­sued by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry on Fri­day. How­ev­er, the or­di­nance has left the date for per­sons to re­main at home un­der the “Stay Home” man­date and for es­sen­tial ser­vices to op­er­ate in that pe­ri­od as April 15.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s vir­tu­al COVID-19 me­dia brief­ing, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said some con­cepts and dates in the or­di­nance were changed as the Gov­ern­ment ad­just­ed to cater to the virus’ spread.

The or­di­nance list­ed con­di­tions un­der which var­i­ous sec­tors have to op­er­ate un­der Gov­ern­ment’s man­date to “Stay Home” for two weeks—un­til April 15— to curb COVID-19 spread.

Bars had been told to close since mid-March. Air and sea­ports were closed to pas­sen­ger op­er­a­tions in March al­so. Max­is, taxis and bus­es were re­cent­ly told to car­ry half loads and roll down win­dows to pre­vent virus spread.

Yes­ter­day, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry, via a re­lease stat­ed the fol­low­ing reg­u­la­tions will now have ef­fect:

(a) Reg­u­la­tion Three from April 3, 2020 to April 15, 2020;

(b) Reg­u­la­tions One, Two, Four and Five, shall have ef­fect from April 3 to April 30, 2020.

Reg­u­la­tion Three lists the or­der to “Stay Home” and groups deemed es­sen­tial which con­tin­ue work­ing dur­ing that pe­ri­od up to April 15. It al­so in­cludes cur­tail­ing up to April 15 those go­ing to beach­es, rivers, streams and springs. It al­so stip­u­lates up to April 15, the five-per­son lim­it on peo­ple con­gre­gat­ing.

Reg­u­la­tion One lists the COVID-19 virus.

Reg­u­la­tion Two ex­tends the stip­u­la­tion for taxis, max­is and bus­es to car­ry half-pas­sen­ger loads un­til April 30 or risk a $50,000 fine and six months jail.

Reg­u­la­tion Four ex­tends the clo­sure of bars, church­es, clubs, casi­nos/gam­bling, in-house restau­rant din­ing and cin­e­ma op­er­a­tion un­til April 30.

Reg­u­la­tion Five ex­tends clo­sure of air/sea­port pas­sen­ger op­er­a­tions un­til April 30.

The sit­u­a­tion is be­ing re­ceived with mixed feel­ings from dri­vers, al­ready sus­tain­ing low­er pas­sen­ger loads. Af­ter be­ing told to car­ry half ca­pac­i­ty, some routes hiked fares to counter the ill- ef­fect on rev­enue.

Sev­er­al Port-of-Spain/San Fer­nan­do dri­vers re­cent­ly ap­pealed to Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er re­duc­ing their fu­el price tem­porar­i­ly dur­ing the “Stay Home” pe­ri­od or they feared fares would be hiked.

Dri­vers said it was dif­fi­cult to car­ry half pas­sen­ger loads and pay for fu­el at the same rate,”... When we don’t know how long this sit­u­a­tion will last.”

Ve­hi­cles car­ry dif­fer­ent pas­sen­ger loads, in­clud­ing eight or 10. Some PoS/South taxis—car­ry­ing five or four— al­so said it was dif­fi­cult to sus­tain with half load.

One dri­ver said, “We know es­sen­tial ser­vices have to work, so we don’t want to go off the road com­plete­ly, dis­lo­cat­ing the pub­lic now when every­one must help. So­cial dis­tanc­ing is fine. We’re just hop­ing for help, even a tem­po­rary gas price re­duc­tion ­—as we don’t want to hike fares.”

Last week, the Siparia/San Fer­nan­do Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion hiked fares, in­clud­ing San Fer­nan­do to Erin/Los Iros, now $20 up from $12. Com­muters com­plained about it.