Cab­i­net and the Min­is­ter of Health were ad­vised of the pos­si­ble spread of the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) back in Jan­u­ary.

In fact, it was Cab­i­net that ad­vised Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to is­sue a procla­ma­tion about the ex­is­tence of the coro­n­avirus.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion dat­ed Jan­u­ary 31, "Trinidad and To­ba­go was re­cent­ly ad­vised by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ex­is­tence of the 2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-nCoV), a high­ly in­fec­tious and dan­ger­ous dis­ease which is cur­rent­ly oc­cur­ring in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions around the world."

The procla­ma­tion al­so said that "the Min­is­ter of Health be­lieves that due to the speed and ease of in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, Trinidad and To­ba­go can ul­ti­mate­ly ex­pect the ar­rival of the 2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-nCoV) and the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect on its pub­lic health."

On Sat­ur­day, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, said "Her Ex­cel­len­cy pro­claimed the virus "an in­fec­tious dis­ease" on the ad­vice of Cab­i­net as she was bound to do."

Ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh first warned against pub­lic gath­er­ing short­ly af­ter Car­ni­val end­ed.

For more than three weeks be­fore Car­ni­val and in the mid­dle of fetes, par­ties and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors, there was no warn­ing of the pos­si­ble im­por­ta­tion of the virus.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Tourism, some 30,710 vis­i­tors en­tered the coun­try for the year. The ma­jor­i­ty com­ing in from the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom.

Back in Jan­u­ary, it was re­port­ed that Cab­i­net was dis­cussing the pro­to­cols to be ac­ti­vat­ed in the event of the virus en­ter­ing the coun­try.

At that time Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that many cit­i­zens were call­ing for the post­pone­ment of the fes­tiv­i­ties.

The coun­try's first COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ty was a 77-year-old man who had come in­to the coun­try for Car­ni­val. The man, Hansel Leon ar­rived in the coun­try on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2020, and on­ly pre­sent­ed with symp­toms at the hos­pi­tal on March 13. This means that the known Car­ni­val lover would have been in the coun­try for over a month be­fore be­com­ing ill.

The coun­try's sec­ond COVID-19 vic­tim is a 66-year-old man who trav­elled abroad less than 14 days be­fore dy­ing at the hos­pi­tal.

The Min­istry of Health did not dis­close the date on which the pa­tient re­turned to Trinidad or how long he had been dis­play­ing symp­toms be­fore he went to the hos­pi­tal. The min­istry said it ac­ti­vat­ed its re­sponse pro­to­cols af­ter the sec­ond death and the coun­ty med­ical of­fi­cer start­ed con­tact trac­ing for all per­sons who had close in­ter­ac­tion with the pa­tient.

Though the Cab­i­net, the Min­is­ter of Health and the Gov­ern­ment were all ap­prised by the WHO about the virus on Jan­u­ary 30, the Speak­er of the House de­nied Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber Dr Tim Gopeesingh's at­tempt to raise it for dis­cus­sion on Par­lia­ment on that same day.

Gopeesingh at­tempt­ed then to raise it as a mat­ter of ur­gent pub­lic im­por­tance but was shot down by Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George. He raised it an­oth­er two times in Par­lia­ment.

The mat­ter was al­so raised for dis­cus­sion in Sen­ate but was al­so dis­missed.

In tele­phone in­ter­views yes­ter­day, both Gopeesingh and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the mat­ter was raised in Par­lia­ment three times (in Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March) and once in the Sen­ate and the Op­po­si­tion was shut down every time.

"In Jan­u­ary we sought to raise it be­cause the WHO was on the verge of say­ing it was a pan­dem­ic, so we knew that Car­ni­val was com­ing up and we would have 30,000 to 40,000 vis­i­tors com­ing in­to the coun­try," Gopeesingh said.

"We want­ed to have a dis­cus­sion about the train­ing of med­ical staff, about bring­ing in equip­ment and mak­ing sure that the hos­pi­tals were ready for what could hap­pen."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that the law was clear, the Pres­i­dent could on­ly make a procla­ma­tion if di­rect­ed by the Cab­i­net. She said it was un­clear why they chose to ig­nore the Op­po­si­tion calls for dis­cus­sions be­fore the virus came to the coun­try.

"And now we have to lis­ten to this ad hoc, off-the-col­lar press con­fer­ences by the Min­is­ter of Health," she said.

Guardian Me­dia mes­saged Deyals­ingh ask­ing about the pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion and the fact that the WHO ad­vised that the virus was on the rise. Guardian Me­dia al­so asked whether peo­ple were ad­vised against gath­er­ings be­fore Car­ni­val.

The Min­is­ter did not re­spond.

Guardian Me­dia then called the min­is­ter from an­oth­er num­ber. He an­swered and when the me­dia house iden­ti­fied it­self, Deyals­ingh di­rect­ed that all "in­quiries should be sent to the cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment" at the Min­istry of Health.