KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Hav­ing cus­tomers present vac­ci­na­tion cards at cin­e­mas, restau­rants, casi­nos and gyms as a cri­te­ri­on for en­try is get­ting the thumb’s up from some busi­ness own­ers, as they are ready to re­sume op­er­a­tions af­ter months of clo­sure.

Daichin Group of Com­pa­nies chair­man Derek Chin yes­ter­day said the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to cre­ate safe zones may al­low healthy set­tings with­in the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Chin said it might al­so en­cour­age peo­ple to get a COVID-19 vac­cine.

Last Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment will aim to cre­ate safe zones once vac­ci­na­tions and in­fec­tion rates were ac­cept­able. In this pro­pos­al, vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple will be able to ac­cess bars, gyms, pri­vate mem­ber clubs and in-house din­ing at restau­rants.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Chin said his group, which op­er­ates Movi­eTowne, Riz­zoni’s Ris­torante Ital­iano and Jaxx In­ter­na­tion­al Grill, is al­ready us­ing this sys­tem in Guyana and it ap­pears to be work­ing.

He said while the Min­istry of Health has not ap­proached the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor on this pro­pos­al, the group is proac­tive in look­ing at how to im­ple­ment the sys­tem.

“A few good movies are com­ing out and we want to be able to show it to the pub­lic. Let peo­ple get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­lax and feel like things get­ting back to nor­mal,” Chin said.

Chin said this seems to be the trend and the pop­u­la­tion has to re­alise that vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple are safer and less like­ly to get sick. He not­ed re­ports from the Unit­ed States, which showed that the ma­jor­i­ty of COVID-19 in­fec­tions were among un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple. He said this seemed to be rel­e­vant in T&T, so vac­ci­na­tion is a safe­ty mea­sure for the safe op­er­at­ing of busi­ness­es.

“I ex­pect this trend to con­tin­ue for cin­e­mas, casi­nos, restau­rants and places where you have peo­ple com­ing to­geth­er with a vac­ci­nat­ed card or vac­cine pass­port. We have to look at this go­ing for­ward. Even for a par­ty or Car­ni­val fete in fu­ture and how we se­cure and keep peo­ple safe. That might be the think­ing and this might be the first im­ple­men­ta­tion.”

While this sys­tem might be con­tentious, Chin said, “I do not think we have much choice but every­thing in the world to­day is about con­trol.”

He likened the pro­posed pol­i­cy to fly­ing on an air­craft, where peo­ple have to fol­low the pro­to­cols of hav­ing lug­gage checks, body search­es and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures to en­sure there is no ter­ror­ist threat on a plane. He said ask­ing for proof of COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion is not much dif­fer­ent as a pre­cau­tion, be­cause the virus is the ter­ror­ist in this set­ting.

From a mar­ket­ing per­spec­tive, he said peo­ple are afraid of con­tract­ing the dis­ease, so busi­ness­es can ad­ver­tise as hav­ing safe spaces.

Derek Chin

Chin said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 per cent of his staff got the vac­cines but a few work­ers were hold­ing out. With lim­it­ed op­er­a­tions, he said not all staff will re­turn to work.

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment needs to al­low the cur­few to be­gin at 11 pm or mid­night for busi­ness­es to be prof­itable. Al­so, if there are on­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple with­in es­tab­lish­ments, he said the Gov­ern­ment should al­low at least 75 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy.

“COVID-19 does not have a watch. We need to open prop­er­ly and we want to have shows at night. With this cur­few, there is too much rush and con­ges­tion in places, which is not good, so al­low us to op­er­ate prop­er­ly with the guide­lines.”

For gym mem­bers, the pol­i­cy at health and fit­ness gyms would be to show up with your vac­ci­na­tion cards and staff will en­ter the in­for­ma­tion in­to a data­base. Mem­bers will still have to fol­low the pub­lic health guide­lines.

Chelsea Ram­nar­ine-Singh, di­rec­tor of the Anand Low Price Group of Com­pa­nies, which op­er­ates the chain of gyms, be­lieves safe zones are a step in the right di­rec­tion. With gyms and fit­ness cen­tres be­ing vi­tal to men­tal and phys­i­cal well be­ing, Ram­nar­ine-Singh be­lieves peo­ple’s urge to get back out will en­cour­age them to get a vac­cine.

With COVID-19 re­stric­tions on busi­ness­es cre­at­ing an em­ploy­ment cri­sis over the past year, she said the re­open­ing of the en­ter­tain­ment and fit­ness sec­tor would ben­e­fit un­em­ployed peo­ple.

“I think it is a good de­ci­sion to al­low vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple to use the fa­cil­i­ties. Whether peo­ple be­lieve vac­cines are work­ing or not, it shows that few­er peo­ple are get­ting the virus once vac­ci­nat­ed,” Ram­nar­ine-Singh said. 

Bar own­ers have been clam­our­ing for a re­sump­tion of in-house pa­tron­age for over a year.

Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Satesh Moonasar said yes­ter­day that mem­bers are will­ing to dis­cuss the pro­pos­al with the Min­istry of Health.

Moonasar said there are a lot of un­known fac­tors and mem­bers need clar­i­ty.

“With this vac­ci­nat­ed-on­ly po­si­tion, this needs to be a Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive and pol­i­cy and must in­volve the Min­istry of Health and the Po­lice Ser­vice. It can­not be left up to op­er­a­tors to make the de­ci­sions. If you say vac­ci­nat­ed on­ly, there must be some mea­sure of con­trol to en­sure vac­ci­nat­ed on­ly are al­lowed. We are open to dis­cussing it,” Moonasar said.