(Trinidad Express) Trinidad and Tobago avoided a calamity because of the painful decisions made over the past three months to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus.
But Government has taken the decision to extend the stay at home to May 10.
And the borders will remain closed during that period also, said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rolwey who reminded that there are 330,000 people who hold Trinidad and Tobago passports living outside of Trinidad and Tobago.
Some of these people were waiting for the border to reopen to come home, he said.
The extension is to give the Health Ministry the chance to ramp up random testing of the population for the COVID-19 virus.
The plan is the conduct at least 50 tests a day on people presenting symptoms of viral illnesses, so that at least 700 can be done during the coming two week period.
And if within ten days, the numbers of positive tests continue to be low, the country would be in a good position to consider a plan for reopening.
The news was delivered yesterday afternoon by Rowley who warned that the threat was still real, and the decision to reopen the country would be driven not by public appeals but by the science and data being provide by health experts.
At a press conference held at the Diplomatic Centre, Port of Spain, Rowley told the country that to get a good result over the new few weeks, the population needed to continue doing the right things.
Among the measures still in force will be the regulations against congregating, the closure of some businesses (which has left thousands jobless), and the closure of schools.
Rowley said that if only one per cent of the 330,000 T&T nationals living abroad decided to come home when the border reopened, the health system would likely be overwhelmed if they began to spread COVID-19.
He appealed to distressed nationals stranded abroad to “shelter in place” and that some students at campuses outside the country would be provided with care packages.
“We are not going to compromise the people of Trinidad and Tobago to please any interest…” he said.
Rowley said that there were some who were lobbying for T&T’s reopening, but there were countries that went that route, only to see an explosion of cases.
Rowley asked that landlords have a heart and accept at most a portion of the rent of some tenants who had been left jobless and penniless.
Also to be ramped up over the next two weeks would be the effort to get help to people in need.
He also said that the Attorney General would amend the regulations allowing for the reopening of hardware stores half day, six days a week.
Very good signs
Chief Medical Officer Dr Rosham Parasram said that based on the existing data regarding COVID-19 cases, the numbers showed a downward trajectory.
However, he said that the purpose of the testing to be done in the general populations in the coming weeks would be to detect whether the virus was present in people who had displayed mind symptoms.
He said 700 would give the country a good benchmark to know whether the virus was present in the community.
He said the testing would continue after citizens began moving about more, to spot whether there were pockets of cases and instances of community spread.
Of the 115 positive cases in Trinidad and Tobago, there were four cases of “local transmission” where a family member was infected by a victim.
As of yesterday morning, the number of samples submitted to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for testing for COVID-19, stood at 1501.
Number of unique patient tests completed -1235
Number of repeated tests – 266
Number of samples which have tested positive – 115
Number of deaths – 8
Number of persons discharged – 52
