Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, has warned against breach­ing the COVID-19 Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions by us­ing vir­tu­al Car­ni­val fetes as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a mass gath­er­ing.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith re­minds T&T that ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 12, 2020, pub­lic gath­er­ings of up to ten per­sons are be­ing al­lowed.

Point­ing to what he says is “the up­surge of Vir­tu­al Car­ni­val fetes, which are be­ing planned to turn in­to mass gath­er­ings by a few”, the top cop warns that the po­lice would have to in­ter­vene if the reg­u­la­tions are breached.

“These vir­tu­al Car­ni­val events, if not con­trolled, would yet again be a cause for the virus to spread,” the Com­mis­sion­er warns, “as some who are ei­ther ir­re­spon­si­ble, or see an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a prof­it, are plan­ning to get un­to the site of these vir­tu­al events and set up large screens with pow­er­ful sound sys­tems, even in their own back yards, then to have cov­er charges, or bring a bot­tle etc, and to have oth­ers view the event, and be en­ter­tained at such venues, hence turn­ing it in­to a Car­ni­val fete.”

He stat­ed: “This is where the TTPS would yet again in­ter­vene, not to be the Grim Reaper of Car­ni­val, but mere­ly to do our job to en­sure that the Reg­u­la­tions are not breached and that per­sons act re­spon­si­bly.”

In the re­lease, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er says he un­der­stands “the ra­tio­nale of these vir­tu­al Car­ni­val events be­ing planned, pri­mar­i­ly as an av­enue to pro­vide funds for cer­tain in­sti­tu­tions to off­set an­nu­al ex­pens­es, in­clu­sive of schools”.

How­ev­er, he is re­mind­ing all or­ga­niz­ers and pro­mot­ers of vir­tu­al Car­ni­val fetes of the dan­gers that such planned events can have.  He al­so warns those who in­tend to use such feeds from these vir­tu­al events to in­vite many oth­ers to their pri­vate premis­es to view and par­tic­i­pate in watch­ing these vir­tu­al fetes.

“Such ac­tions would be seen as Breach­es of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions, as you would be turn­ing your pri­vate premis­es in­to a pub­lic place and the Po­lice would act ac­cord­ing­ly,” he says.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith al­so ad­dressed re­cent con­cerns raised about wed­dings.

“There is a very spe­cif­ic and sci­en­tif­ic rea­son why the Or­di­nance made al­lowances for wed­dings, but with very clear guid­ance as to the re­quire­ments. One can­not com­pare a wed­ding with hun­dreds of guests, to a wed­ding with ten or twen­ty guests,” he says in the state­ment.

“We have ab­solute­ly no is­sue with the host­ing of the small­er wed­dings, as we have seen an up­surge in this prac­tice.  How­ev­er, the high­er the num­bers, the high­er the risk. And I want to re­mind the pop­u­la­tion, that we will en­force the laws, even if it means pro­tect­ing you from your­self," he as­serts.

The top cop adds: “We are not alone in the ever-evolv­ing fight to man­age be­hav­iours to de­crease the spread.  How­ev­er, what makes it more chal­leng­ing is the con­tin­ued push back, in­clud­ing the con­stant ques­tion­ing of the en­force­ment of the Quar­an­tine Act.  These laws have been draft­ed and are be­ing en­forced, not to frus­trate any­one, but to save lives.  Our role is to en­force the law—it’s that sim­ple.”