Trinidad student returning from China says she was screened and clear by immigration

The student with the face mask she wore on her return to Trinidad on Friday night.
The student with the face mask she wore on her return to Trinidad on Friday night.

(Trinidad Guardian) Three days af­ter Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh an­nounced a 14-day trav­el re­stric­tion on ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers from Chi­na, a lo­cal stu­dent has re­turned home and was re­unit­ed with her fam­i­ly af­ter she says she was screened and cleared by im­mi­gra­tion.

The stu­dent said she was not “flagged” with any flu-like symp­toms.

 
The 20-year-old woman from east Trinidad, who is a sec­ond-year stu­dent at the New York Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, ar­rived at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port close to mid­night on Fri­day.

The schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent’s re­turn to Shang­hai one week ago co­in­cid­ed with the Chi­nese New Year which was cel­e­brat­ed on Jan­u­ary 25.

How­ev­er, hours af­ter land­ing in Chi­na, she was in­formed that class­es had been post­poned in­def­i­nite­ly fol­low­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus which orig­i­nat­ed in the Wuhan province. Wuhan is ap­prox­i­mate­ly an eight-hour train ride from the stu­dent’s lo­ca­tion in Shang­hai.

The soft-spo­ken stu­dent said up­on land­ing in Chi­na, every­one was in­struct­ed to main­tain a self-im­posed iso­la­tion and as such, she re­mained locked in her dorm un­til de­cid­ing to re­turn home to T&T.

Re­quest­ing her name not be pub­lished, the So­cial Sci­ences stu­dent trav­elled from Shang­hai to Tokyo, then to Texas and fi­nal­ly T&T.

Screened a to­tal of three times, the woman said she was cur­rent­ly sat­is­fied with the in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal screen­ing pro­ce­dures she had un­der­gone.

How­ev­er, she added that while T&T had ac­ti­vat­ed screen­ing pro­ce­dures, she was un­cer­tain if this would be enough as the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to un­fold.

“In the air­ports that I have passed through in the US and Tokyo, it’s pret­ty okay be­cause they are do­ing what every­one is do­ing at the mo­ment. I am not too sure as the whole sit­u­a­tion pro­gress­es if it will be enough be­cause I know def­i­nite­ly that the oth­er air­ports are re­al­ly crack­ing down on every­thing.”

‘I con­sid­er my­self lucky’

Re­fer­ring to the bans on ar­riv­ing Chi­nese na­tion­als by var­i­ous coun­tries around the world, the stu­dent said, “I be­lieve I was’nt flagged be­cause I didn’t show any signs. I haven’t been sick from the time I ar­rived in Shang­hai, to the time I left.”

“I used my mask from the mo­ment I left my dorm in Shang­hai, straight un­til my ar­rival in Hous­ton. Up­on ar­riv­ing, there was bare­ly any­one us­ing masks and I was in­struct­ed by the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer to re­move it so they could see my face. But no one had any health con­cerns with it. They weren’t even us­ing masks.”

In­di­cat­ing she was lucky to have been al­lowed to go home by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, she said, “I prayed from the mo­ment I heard what they were go­ing to do that un­til I came, so yes, I con­sid­er my­self lucky.”

Ap­plaud­ing Gov­ern­ment for im­ple­ment­ing the de­ci­sion to re­strict vis­i­tors from Chi­na in a bid to pro­tect the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion, she claimed, “It is re­al­ly scary for the peo­ple that are ac­tu­al­ly just try­ing to get back home be­cause I def­i­nite­ly know there are Trinida­di­ans in Chi­na who prob­a­bly have not ar­rived home as yet, and when they do, they will prob­a­bly be placed in quar­an­tine.”

Asked to de­scribe the at­mos­phere back in Chi­na, she said, “When I ar­rived back in Chi­na, there was bare­ly any cel­e­bra­tions at all. It was just qui­et and if any­one was out, they were wear­ing masks. I think peo­ple were just try­ing to iso­late them­selves.”

Asked if the sit­u­a­tion was as bad as was be­ing re­port­ed, she said, “I don’t be­lieve it’s as bad as it’s be­ing made out to be.”

Point­ing to the fact that Shang­hai has a pop­u­la­tion of just over 24 mil­lion, the stu­dent claimed, “There are prob­a­bly 100 cas­es in Shang­hai.”

“Every­thing is in Wuhan and they are on lock­down. The au­thor­i­ties stopped pub­lic trans­porta­tion and peo­ple are re­al­ly try­ing their best to be safe. Noth­ing is go­ing on and every­where is closed. There is no hys­te­ria at all.

“I don’t think us in Trinidad have that much to wor­ry about, main­ly be­cause per capi­ta, it’s a re­al­ly re­al­ly slim sta­tis­ti­cal chance. Once we stay clean, wash our hands, we should be pret­ty safe.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­flux of vis­i­tors be­ing ex­pect­ed for Car­ni­val, the stu­dent urged every­one to main­tain a strict lev­el of clean­li­ness and per­son­al hy­giene to min­imise the spread of the virus.

In­di­cat­ing her moth­er had been “pan­icky and very wor­ried,” the stu­dent smiled as she re­mem­bered tak­ing calls at least three times a day.

Briefly com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion and hav­ing her daugh­ter back home, the moth­er said she was re­lieved her youngest child had not been de­tained by the au­thor­i­ties.

Health Min­is­ter says quar­an­tine mea­sures in place at Cau­ra

Com­ment­ing on the stu­dent’s ar­rival, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said while he was not aware of that spe­cif­ic pas­sen­ger, he was con­fi­dent that the stu­dent would have been sub­ject­ed to all screen­ing mea­sures that they had put in place.

He said this coun­try’s air­ports and sea­ports have all been locked down in a bid to de­tect and iso­late po­ten­tial cas­es of the coro­n­avirus.

And while he has as­sured that quar­an­tine mech­a­nisms are in place at the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal to fa­cil­i­tate the iso­la­tion of such peo­ple, he is op­ti­mistic that ear­ly pre­ven­tion mea­sures would be suc­cess­ful to stop the en­try of the virus in­to T&T.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from re­porters Sat­ur­day at the Mt Hope Wom­ens’ Clin­ic, Deyals­ingh re­in­forced the an­nounce­ment by Cab­i­net last Thurs­day to sub­ject peo­ple ar­riv­ing in T&T from Chi­na to a 14-day re­stric­tion which would cov­er the ex­pect­ed vi­ral in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od.

This means that ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers will not be al­lowed to en­ter T&T un­til a 14-day pe­ri­od has elapsed.

He claimed, “Since we an­nounced the 14-day win­dow, Ja­maica has fol­lowed suit. The Cruise Ship Al­liance, which is a glob­al al­liance, has now used that. The US has now come and said any­one com­ing in from Chi­na will be quar­an­tined for 14 days.”

Con­firm­ing the me­dia would be in­vit­ed to view the ther­mal screen­ing pro­ce­dures at the air­port on Fri­day, Deyals­ingh said the tour would in­clude a trip to the quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty at Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal.

The min­is­ter said Chi­nese au­thor­i­ties had al­ready is­sued na­tion­al no­tices ad­vis­ing peo­ple that any­one leav­ing the coun­try would do so at their own risk.

Deyals­ingh said, “It is bet­ter if you are in Chi­na and well, to stay there.”

He said it was much eas­i­er to self-iso­late your­self in Chi­na than to go on a plane and risk ex­pos­ing hun­dreds more to the virus.

He said all for­eign em­bassies in Chi­na were be­ing pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary sup­plies to treat their lo­cal who live and work in the coun­try.

Deyals­ingh said, “So far, there is no lo­cal Trinida­di­an or To­bag­on­ian who has come down with the virus in Chi­na.”

On Thurs­day, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion de­clared the virus an in­ter­na­tion­al emer­gency.

The death toll in Chi­na has so far ex­ceed­ed 250.

Coro­n­avirus care

WHO’s stan­dard rec­om­men­da­tions for the gen­er­al pub­lic to re­duce ex­po­sure to and trans­mis­sion of a range of ill­ness­es are as fol­lows, which in­clude hand and res­pi­ra­to­ry hy­giene, and safe food prac­tices:

  1. Fre­quent­ly clean hands by us­ing al­co­hol-based hand rub or soap and wa­ter;
  2. When cough­ing and sneez­ing cov­er mouth and nose with flexed el­bow or tis­sue – throw tis­sue away im­me­di­ate­ly and wash hands;
  3. Avoid close con­tact with any­one who has fever and cough;
  4. If you have fever, cough and dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing seek med­ical care ear­ly and share pre­vi­ous trav­el his­to­ry with your health care provider;
  5. When vis­it­ing live mar­kets in ar­eas cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing cas­es of nov­el coro­n­avirus, avoid di­rect un­pro­tect­ed con­tact with live an­i­mals and sur­faces in con­tact with an­i­mals;
  6. The con­sump­tion of raw or un­der­cooked an­i­mal prod­ucts should be avoid­ed. Raw meat, milk or an­i­mal or­gans should be han­dled with care, to avoid cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion with un­cooked foods, as per good food safe­ty prac­tices.