State quar­an­tine or state-su­per­vised quar­an­tine for sev­en days for re­turn­ing T&T na­tion­als is one of sev­er­al changes to the COVID-19 Ex­emp­tion Pol­i­cy, which were an­nounced by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young MP, yes­ter­day.

Non-na­tion­als still won’t be al­lowed in­to the coun­try, un­less there are ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances ne­ces­si­tat­ing such.

And from No­vem­ber 15th, re­turn­ing na­tion­als must be able to pro­duce a neg­a­tive PCR test show­ing they are neg­a­tive for COVID-19, which is no old­er than three days.

A re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has de­tailed eight key changes to the Pol­i­cy, which has been im­ple­ment­ed since this coun­try closed its bor­ders in March 2020.

The full text of the Min­istry’s state­ment, fol­lows…

CHANGES TO EX­EMP­TION POL­I­CY FOR TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO NA­TION­ALS

Port of Spain:  At a me­dia con­fer­ence held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s to­day, (Sat­ur­day No­vem­ber 07, 2020), Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Ho­n­ourable Stu­art R. Young  M.P.,  gave  an  up­date  on  the  ex­emp­tion  pol­i­cy  for  those  Trinidad  and  To­ba­go na­tion­als who wish to en­ter this coun­try while the cur­rent bor­der re­stric­tions re­main in place, as a re­sult of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

Min­is­ter Young an­nounced the fol­low­ing mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the Ex­emp­tion Pol­i­cy:

1. Na­tion­als of Trinidad To­ba­go are still re­quired to ap­ply for an ex­emp­tion to en­ter or ex­it this coun­try.

2. Non-na­tion­als are still not per­mit­ted to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go, ex­cept in cer­tain ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances.

3. Gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­ty re­mains get­ting na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go back home on a  first  come  first  serve  ba­sis,  whilst  ap­ply­ing  the  ex­ist­ing  poli­cies  that  have  been pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed. As such, ex­emp­tions and the grant­i­ng of ap­provals will de­pend on the num­ber of per­sons in the queue and are based on the quar­an­tine space avail­able.

4.  From  Sun­day  No­vem­ber  15,  2020,  na­tion­als  en­ter­ing  Trinidad  and  To­ba­go  will  be re­quired to pro­vide a neg­a­tive Poly­merase Chain Re­ac­tion (PCR) test, which was tak­en with­in 72 hours be­fore ar­rival in­to this coun­try.

5.  Up­on  ar­rival,  na­tion­als  will  be  re­quired  to  be  placed  in  state  quar­an­tine  or  state su­per­vised quar­an­tine for sev­en (7) days. Per­sons will be test­ed on the sixth day of their quar­an­tine and re­leased once they test neg­a­tive.

6. When ap­ply­ing for an ex­emp­tion to re­turn home, per­sons will be re­quired to in­di­cate whether they wish to pay and be placed in state su­per­vised quar­an­tine. We ask that when ap­ply­ing, per­sons pro­vide all of the in­for­ma­tion for all fam­i­ly mem­bers who will be go­ing in­to state su­per­vised quar­an­tine.

7. State su­per­vised quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties will be at the KAPOK, Chan­cel­lor, Cas­ca­dia and Re­gent Star Ho­tels.

8. All na­tion­als who are seek­ing to re­turn home for the Christ­mas Hol­i­day will be re­quired to pay for state su­per­vised quar­an­tine. This in­cludes stu­dents and oth­er na­tion­als who are re­turn­ing for short vis­its and ex­pect­ing to leave Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter their short stays here.

Those seek­ing ex­emp­tions to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go should send their  ap­pli­ca­tions and bio da­ta pages of their pass­ports along with the oth­er in­for­ma­tion list­ed above, if ap­plic­a­ble, to:- trav­elex­emp­tion@mns.gov.tt