Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is said to be “hold­ing his own” af­ter test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19 yes­ter­day.

Row­ley ex­pe­ri­enced flu-like symp­toms on Mon­day and was sub­se­quent­ly test­ed for COVID-19, with the test com­ing back pos­i­tive.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley was said to be in iso­la­tion and un­der med­ical su­per­vi­sion at an undis­closed lo­ca­tion in To­ba­go.

The PM’s pos­i­tive COVID test came on the day when the long-await­ed na­tion­al vac­cine roll­out be­gan, when Row­ley him­self was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Row­ley as­sured Guardian Me­dia that none of his Cab­i­net Min­is­ters had been ex­posed to the virus, at least not by him.

“I have not been in the pres­ence of any Min­is­ter for the last two weeks,” Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia in re­sponse to ques­tions about oth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ters pos­si­bly be­ing ex­posed.

Row­ley was, how­ev­er, at a news con­fer­ence with Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh last Tues­day, when he warned the coun­try that there could be an­oth­er lock­down if the spike in num­bers of COVID cas­es con­tin­ued.

Deyals­ingh re­ceived his sched­uled As­traZeneca jab yes­ter­day, as did Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and her 92-year-old moth­er.

Yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health re­port­ed 22 new COVID cas­es. The PM was one of those new cas­es.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said yes­ter­day that ac­cord­ing to World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion pro­to­cols, Row­ley will now have to wait up to six months be­fore be­ing in­oc­u­lat­ed be­cause of his in­fec­tion.

Gov­ern­ment sources yes­ter­day said Row­ley had spo­ken to some peo­ple yes­ter­day morn­ing, had sound­ed strong and was “hold­ing his own.”

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced his pos­i­tive test yes­ter­day morn­ing. His ill­ness fol­lowed a re­cent surge in COVID cas­es across the coun­try.

Not­ing the sit­u­a­tion and in­for­ma­tion that many peo­ple were plan­ning East­er hol­i­day-mak­ing and To­ba­go was due to ex­pe­ri­ence large num­bers of vis­i­tors for the East­er week­end, Row­ley had last week told cit­i­zens to fol­low COVID pro­to­cols, say­ing “You have been warned!”

Row­ley’s said to have gone to To­ba­go last Tues­day.

Gov­ern­ment hasn’t said where he is but sources said he was at his Ma­son Hall farm up to re­cent­ly. Of­fi­cials said pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary con­tact trac­ing is be­ing done in Trinidad as well as in To­ba­go.

Sources said Row­ley “took in” on Mon­day night but was “up yes­ter­day morn­ing talk­ing and sound­ing nor­mal.”

It was al­so an­nounced that To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis has been quar­an­tined un­til April 16 af­ter be­ing ex­posed on Good Fri­day to the pri­ma­ry con­tact of a re­cent COVID case.

This is the sec­ond re­cent health is­sue for Row­ley, 71, in the last three months. On Jan­u­ary 8, he was hos­pi­talised at the West­shore Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal in Co­corite af­ter hav­ing dis­com­fort and chest pains. He sub­se­quent­ly had an an­giogram and an­gio­plas­ty and was sent home on Jan­u­ary 10. He chaired a Cari­com lead­ers’ vir­tu­al con­fer­ence the day af­ter.

Over 2016 to 2019, Row­ley al­so had suc­cess­ful prostate and heart tests in the Unit­ed States - but was warned about soft plaque in an artery. It was ex­pect­ed he’d have a check-up in ear­ly 2020 but bor­ders were closed af­ter COVID-19 hit in March 2020.

Yes­ter­day, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Women’s League head Camille Robin­son-Reg­is called on the na­tion to keep the PM in their prayers.

“We ask that the na­tion lift the ho­n­ourable leader of this coun­try up in prayer,” she said in a press re­lease.

She al­so called for a na­tion­al day of prayer, not­ing Row­ley had once asked for such a day.

“The PNM Women’s League wish­es the Prime Min­is­ter and po­lit­i­cal leader a speedy re­cov­ery and is con­fi­dent that stel­lar med­ical care will be pro­vid­ed by the na­tion’s doc­tors,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

“We urge the cit­i­zen­ry to con­tin­ue to be vig­i­lant in this fight against COVID-19. We re­mind each and every­one to prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing and to wear masks as rec­om­mend­ed. To those el­i­gi­ble for the vac­cine, we re­mind you to take the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure you make an ap­point­ment to re­ceive it.”

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi added, “All of us in the PNM, San Fer­nan­do West and the AG’s Of­fice send the Prime Min­is­ter love and prayers for quick re­cov­ery. We ask the Lord to keep him safe.

“He’s a front­line work­er and we of­ten take for grant­ed the ex­tent of the pub­lic in­ter­ac­tion he’s called up­on to do in the per­for­mance of his du­ties and which he’s done with vi­bran­cy and gus­to in these very dif­fi­cult times.”

PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, in the par­ty’s mes­sage, said the par­ty “lifts the Prime Min­is­ter up in love ... our leader has re­peat­ed­ly em­pha­sised the virus doesn’t dis­crim­i­nate be­tween par­ty mem­ber­ship, so­cial sta­tus, pro­fes­sion, age or any oth­er so­cial de­mo­graph­ic or con­struct.”

Greet­ings al­so came from World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion head Dr Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, who al­so alert­ed the WHO of Cari­com chair­man Row­ley’s ill­ness and British High Com­mis­sion­er Har­ri­et Cross.