Mask up or move if you’re around coughers. That’s be­cause a re­cent study shows that hard cough­ing emits droplets from a per­son’s mouth which stays in the at­mos­phere for eight min­utes.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­ferred to the study in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, adding: “...so if some­one ahead of you coughs, you walk in­to a cloud of droplets if you don’t have a mask.”

He said masks should be used by recre­ation­al run­ners and walk­ers.

Deyals­ingh was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Fuad Khan on why it was nec­es­sary to wear a mask when ex­er­cis­ing for in­stance, if so­cial dis­tanc­ing was be­ing prac­tised.

In re­sponse to Khan’s ad­di­tion­al ques­tions about us­ing masks while run­ning, the min­is­ter said recre­ation­al run­ners should wear cot­ton cloth masks. He ad­vised against us­ing pro­fes­sion­al run­ners’ masks and N95 med­ical masks.

“If you have a res­pi­ra­to­ry con­di­tion, talk to your doc­tor and ex­er­cise at home,” he said.

Deyals­ingh ad­vised mouth-breathers to lis­ten to their body: “If you feel dizzy, just stop.”

On oth­er Op­po­si­tion ques­tions, So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said the min­istry re­ceived 946 ap­pli­ca­tions for rental as­sis­tance, but 220 ap­pli­cants were paid and 25 per cent of the ap­pli­ca­tions were found to be in­valid.

“In re­view­ing some, we de­tect­ed anom­alies sug­gest­ing at­tempts at fraud. So we im­ple­ment­ed a more ro­bust sys­tem to val­i­date all re­quests for rental help, in­clud­ing site vis­its to ad­dress­es of all ap­pli­cants. More than 25 per cent were found to be in­valid,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is said some peo­ple weren’t liv­ing at the ad­dress­es in the ap­pli­ca­tions, some weren’t rent­ing but were liv­ing with fam­i­ly—yet claim­ing rents—and some were rent­ing HDC hous­es.

“De­spite chal­lenges, to date, we processed 220 ap­pli­ca­tions for pay­ment and in­val­i­dat­ed 25 per cent of the 946 ap­pli­ca­tions we got,” she said, adding that the min­istry is speak­ing to the po­lice about the is­sue.

On an­oth­er ques­tion about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of al­low­ing 49 Dis­ney Cruise em­ploy­ees to re­turn to T&T, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry Stu­art Young said cruise ship com­pa­nies should keep pas­sen­gers safe, in­clud­ing staff. He said as the sit­u­a­tion de­vel­ops, is­sues in­volv­ing the thou­sands of na­tion­als out­side of T&T will be ad­dressed.

Op­po­si­tion MP Rudy In­dars­ingh point­ed out that the work­ers’ con­tracts are ex­pect­ed to ex­pire soon. Young said Gov­ern­ment is get­ting re­quests for en­try from 300 peo­ple on cruise ships, but the coun­try’s bor­ders re­main closed to pro­tect the pub­lic based on med­ical ad­vice from pub­lic health ex­perts.

Com­ment­ing on In­dars­ingh’s state­ment that oth­er Cari­com gov­ern­ments are repa­tri­at­ing na­tion­als from the same cruise line, Young said T&T is man­ag­ing its COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion as a sov­er­eign na­tion and tak­ing its own de­ci­sions from med­ical ex­perts and oth­ers from out­side the coun­try.

Dr Roodal Mooni­lal asked if the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry has a writ­ten pol­i­cy on ex­emp­tions or if it was at the min­is­ter’s dis­cre­tion.

“Can a busi­ness­man get an ex­emp­tion but ship’s crews can­not?” he asked.