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Friday, July 11, 2025

COVID-19 forces T&T to ban foreigners’ entry

by

Gail Alexander
1943 days ago
20200316

Emer­gency iso­la­tion mode!

From mid­night tonight, non-na­tion­als won’t be al­lowed en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go for two weeks, schools will re­main closed un­til April 20 and bars are be­ing asked to close for two weeks to pre­vent nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) spread.

“We’re ba­si­cal­ly dis­con­nect­ing our­selves from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for the next 14 days,” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, on Mon­day, af­ter a spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing con­cern­ing more plans to deal with the virus.

He said ex­perts have told Gov­ern­ment the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion could last un­til June, with im­me­di­ate ef­fects up to Oc­to­ber.

T&T cur­rent­ly has five cas­es: two an­nounced last week, two more on Sun­day and one yes­ter­day. All five were im­port­ed cas­es. Yes­ter­day, Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials at the brief­ing, said there are al­so many peo­ple in self-iso­la­tion now.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, among min­is­ters who spoke yes­ter­day, al­so es­ti­mat­ed that T&T could lose $5 bil­lion from the twin “hit” of the re­cent oil price crash and the virus. (See page 6)

“We’re in a cri­sis, we’re in an emer­gency - there’s no gain­say­ing that,” Row­ley said.

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that there are 75 el­der­ly na­tion­als up the Caribbean on a cruise ship —which had some COVID cas­es—and they’re try­ing to re­turn. He said they couldn’t be de­nied en­try as they’re cit­i­zens.

“They’re com­ing home and when they do, they form part of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Row­ley said.

He said Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to shut out the virus from T&T and con­tain the sit­u­a­tion to pre­vent trans­mis­sion.

“To do this we have to iso­late our­selves from the out­side source of the virus,” he said.

He added there could be no so­lu­tion with­out some in­con­ve­nience and pain, or T&T would end up in a worst case sce­nario. De­ci­sions be­ing tak­en were based on pol­i­cy, he said.

“We will pro­tect your jobs, your fam­i­lies, the econ­o­my as far pos­si­ble,” he said, de­tail­ing the fol­low­ing:

• From mid­night tonight T&T will cease to en­cour­age/ac­cept en­try of non-na­tion­als for two weeks, save un­der ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances. Ex­cep­tions in­clude health­care, Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency and oth­er es­sen­tial work­ers

• All bars where peo­ple gath­er to drink and so­cialise will re­main closed for 14 days to de­ny virus spread.

• To pre­vent per­son-to-per­son trans­mis­sion, Gov­ern­ment is in­struct­ing that gath­er­ings be­yond 25 peo­ple be avoid­ed at all costs ex­cept un­der un­avoid­able cir­cum­stances.

• Clo­sure of schools and places of learn­ing, an­nounced last Fri­day will con­tin­ue un­til start of the new term on April 20.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said Gov­ern­ment was al­so ask­ing bars to shut op­er­a­tions for the 14 days.

Row­ley added that while moral sua­sion is the so­lu­tion, “if it’s re­quest­ed to be leg­is­lat­ed, we will.”

“If it can be en­forced un­der ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion, it will be—but peo­ple of T&T why do we have to be beat­en over the head to do the cor­rect thing to save our lives?”

Say­ing the sit­u­a­tion is a very, very se­ri­ous one, Row­ley said bars are places where peo­ple go to re­lax and sip a beer and while the clo­sure call will have a “...cer­tain kind of cul­tur­al rub, we’re called on not to do some­thing like (go­ing to a bar) be­cause the con­se­quences can be grave. Look at what’s hap­pened in oth­er coun­tries.”

He said restau­rants aren’t be­ing asked to close but curb­side ser­vice over in-house din­ing would be prefer­able, since in-house din­ing caus­es con­gre­gat­ing which in­creas­es trans­mis­sion spread. “This is for a short time ... we’re aim­ing to cre­ate a se­mi-ster­ile en­vi­ron­ment, so don’t make it dif­fi­cult by con­gre­gat­ing.”

Sev­er­al lo­cal fran­chise restau­rant com­pa­nies yes­ter­day an­nounced new mea­sures which sus­pend­ed in-house din­ing in favour of take-away ac­tiv­i­ty.

Row­ley said a state of emer­gency wasn’t part of the so­lu­tion since this couldn’t make peo­ple wash their hands.


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