Gail Alexan­der

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning, who has re­port­ed­ly been quar­an­tined at Cou­va Hos­pi­tal af­ter con­tract­ing COVID-19, is do­ing fine.

This was the word from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment par­ty of­fi­cials af­ter word of Man­ning’s quar­an­tine cir­cu­lat­ed yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Man­ning, in his mid-40s, is said to have been hos­pi­talised very re­cent­ly Yes­ter­day he was on­line com­mu­ni­cat­ing with peo­ple, in­clud­ing PNM of­fi­cials. How­ev­er, Man­ning didn’t re­ply to What’s App mes­sages from the Sun­day Guardian.

Man­ning had been in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week Wednes­day when he com­plet­ed his con­tri­bu­tion in de­bate on the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty bill.

San Fer­nan­do East MP Man­ning is the sec­ond Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter to come down with the virus re­cent­ly, of­fi­cials not­ed.

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs had been vac­ci­nat­ed months ago.

Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe, who test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 in the pre­vi­ous week, was among those vac­ci­nat­ed. She said in news re­ports a few days ago that she and sev­er­al staff mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. They were al­so in quar­an­tine.

Cud­joe de­vel­oped symp­toms, in­clud­ing tired­ness, dry cough and sweat­ing, but is re­cov­er­ing. She an­swered the Sun­day Guardian’s call yes­ter­day. Cud­joe, who will be in quar­an­tine un­til the next two weeks, will be un­able to vote in to­mor­row’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

Cud­joe had al­so been in iso­la­tion last month when she and oth­er cam­paign­ing PN­Mites were pri­ma­ry con­tacts of PNM Bethel/New Grange can­di­date Down­ie Mar­celle. He de­vel­oped COVID, re­cu­per­at­ed and was back to work. Cud­joe and the oth­er team mem­bers didn’t de­vel­op the virus and she was cleared af­ter two weeks, but now has it.

Yes­ter­day, Uni­ty of the Peo­ple can­di­date Niko­cy Phillips (Buc­coo) said she took a PCR test out of pre­cau­tion, as she’s on the ground cam­paign­ing and she test­ed neg­a­tive ac­cord­ing to re­sults re­ceived last Fri­day. None of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots or PNM’s can­di­dates are ill.

How­ev­er, up to yes­ter­day, there were 42 more COVID cas­es in To­ba­go and last Fri­day, there were 110 new ones.

Al­so, ac­cord­ing to the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment, To­ba­go has 826 ac­tive COVID cas­es. This in­cludes 771 peo­ple in home iso­la­tion, 48 in state iso­la­tion and sev­en in ICU.

Last Fri­day, PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley said peo­ple who were quar­an­tined or are ill with COVID and iso­lat­ed would be breach­ing pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions if they emerged to vote to­mor­row.

How the cas­es might af­fect the vot­er turnout re­mains ahead. In Jan­u­ary’s THA poll with 51,061 elec­tors - and with PNM, PDP and two in­de­pen­dents con­test­ing - a to­tal of 26,474 votes were re­ceived. There are more elec­tors for to­mor­row’s elec­tions – 51,383.