(Trinidad Guardian) Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Shamfa Cudjoe says members of the Caribbean Premier League contingent will not be treated any differently if anyone tests positive for COVID-19 during their stay in Trinidad and Tobago.
The tournament is scheduled for August 18-September 12 and a contingent of over 251 people, including the players, staff and other stakeholders, will be quarantined at the Hilton Trinidad for its duration.
But Cudjoe said if anyone tests positive at any point in time they will go through the state procedure. “We will have to bring them into the state facility just like anybody else who is tested positive. Even though they are coming from their home countries we can’t put them on a plane and send them back, so anybody who tests positive in Trinidad and Tobago, whether they are a national or a foreigner, whether they are an athlete or a staff member of CPL, they would have to go into and follow quarantine protocols and go into the state facility and treated just like anybody else,” Cudjoe said during a walkabout in the Mt Hay/Fair Banks area in Tobago West yesterday.
Commenting on statements by Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar that the borders were being opened to accommodate the CPL contingent while citizens were being deprived from returning home to vote in the August 10 General Election, Cudjoe said the Government has been working assiduously to bring citizens home.
“Well that wouldn’t be entirely true because the past couple weeks, the Government has been working on bringing nationals home. You would have seen hundreds of nationals who would have been brought home, so that is a system being managed by the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Health and in the same fashion as the CPL decision, careful consideration was given by the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Health,” she said.
