Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said that re­duced COVID-19 com­pli­ance is all over the coun­try and that To­ba­go should not be blamed for the cur­rent surge.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Row­ley said that even be­fore East­er, the ar­eas of spik­ing com­mu­ni­ty spread of the virus were Coun­ty Ca­roni and Coun­ty Vic­to­ria.

Sub­se­quent­ly, the third most af­fect­ed zone was St George East, he al­so not­ed.

“Well be­fore the East­er va­ca­tion, I took the time out to raise with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty the com­ing of a pe­ri­od of ex­tend­ed hol­i­days and week­ends cen­tred around the East­er va­ca­tion, oth­er hol­i­days and re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“I ap­pealed for a na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of our com­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and asked that even as we were get­ting tired of the stress­es, that there were dan­gers if we re­laxed and ben­e­fits to be had if we com­plied with an im­proved sense of per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Row­ley said that from the very on­set of the pan­dem­ic, “We as a na­tion took the ap­proach that we will re­ly on a na­tion­al co­op­er­at­ing ef­fort to min­imise and sup­press the virus un­til it can be over­come.

“That ap­proach is still valid and I ask fel­low cit­i­zens to do their in­di­vid­ual parts in or­der to bring us the re­sults we de­sire.”

“I am aware that not every cit­i­zen will see it this way but what we have to guard against is al­low­ing the cir­cum­stances of the pan­dem­ic to fur­ther de­stroy us as a peo­ple want­i­ng the best for our­selves, our fam­i­lies, our com­mu­ni­ties and our na­tion.”

He added, “It is in this re­gard that I re­ject any at­tempt to mis­rep­re­sent the facts and the plac­ing of blame on To­ba­go for host­ing a few thou­sands who chose to spend their time in that part of the coun­try with fam­i­ly and friends, or just strangers, en­joy­ing the am­bi­ence that ex­ists there. It is not where you spend your time, it is what you do there.”

Row­ley said the datasheets from the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer yes­ter­day con­tin­ued to con­firm that the ar­eas of ac­cel­er­at­ing in­creas­es of con­firmed vi­ral in­fec­tion con­tin­ue to be Coun­ty Ca­roni, Coun­ty Vic­to­ria and St George East.

“To set about to sep­a­rate the peo­ple of To­ba­go or their tourism econ­o­my for spe­cial ha­tred is mis­lead­ing and just plain wrong. Against the da­ta set, it is un­nec­es­sary and pure­ly di­vi­sive for politi­cians with noth­ing use­ful to con­tribute to be try­ing to es­tab­lish that our cur­rent cir­cum­stances are as a re­sult of a suc­cess­ful East­er week­end in To­ba­go.”

Yes­ter­day, T&T’s to­tal COVID-19 cas­es stood at 9,216 with 81 new cas­es and 157 deaths.

In ad­di­tion to the list of oth­er re­cent re­stric­tions, from mid­night last night un­til May 16, there will be no pub­lic gath­er­ings for en­ter­tain­ment and con­certs, pub­lic ser­vice em­ploy­ees will be ro­tat­ed with a 50 per cent lev­el op­er­at­ing quo­ta, con­gre­ga­tions at places of wor­ship will be re­duced from 50 per cent to 25 per cent and wed­dings and fu­ner­als will be lim­it­ed to 10 peo­ple.

Pri­or to the me­dia brief­ing, Row­ley chaired a meet­ing of the COVID-19 Re­sponse Team with the Min­istries of Health and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Al­so at­tend­ing was Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice Stu­art Young.

In his post-brief­ing state­ment, Row­ley said in re­sponse to the un­wel­come ris­ing num­bers of in­fect­ed per­sons and those need­ing hos­pi­tal care, he had au­tho­rised some fur­ther re­stric­tions on the ex­po­sure and move­ments of the pop­u­la­tion.

“I trust that you will see the need for these ac­tions and un­der­take to com­ply.”

He said the prob­lem of re­duced com­pli­ance is all over the coun­try, “And should be seen as such if we are to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion and get back to a lev­el that could see us rolling back the re­cent re­stric­tions. I ask for your in­di­vid­ual co­op­er­a­tion. This and our abid­ing faith in God will see us through.”