Cau­tion is still re­quired as the coun­try tran­si­tions from the acute to the en­dem­ic phase of COVID-19.

This should be the most im­por­tant take­away from yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of the most sub­stan­tial eas­ing of re­stric­tions in two years of pan­dem­ic lim­i­ta­tions.

From Mon­day, pub­lic trans­port will re­turn to 100 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, the pub­lic ser­vice will re­sume full op­er­a­tions and the manda­to­ry vac­cine re­quire­ment for that sec­tor will no longer be pur­sued. Re­stric­tions on the length of time and nu­mer­i­cal ca­pac­i­ty for re­li­gious ser­vices have been lift­ed, and quar­an­tine times have been re­duced.

But this should not be seen as a sig­nal to throw cau­tion to the wind. The coro­n­avirus is not go­ing away any time soon, al­though this coun­try’s pop­u­la­tion is now in a bet­ter po­si­tion to live with the dis­ease. Com­mon sense and dis­ci­pline will be es­sen­tial to get through the next few months with­out set­backs and more peaks in in­fec­tions and deaths.

The lift­ing of COVID-19 re­stric­tions has been tak­ing place in oth­er parts of the globe. In an an­nounce­ment in mid-Feb­ru­ary, Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Olaf Scholz said that coun­try was ready to move for­ward.

“We can now with­draw the re­stric­tions step by step, but we should con­tin­ue to be care­ful,” he said.

Switzer­land and Aus­tria al­so an­nounced the scrap­ping of COVID-19 re­stric­tions and in Eng­land, all re­main­ing le­gal re­stric­tions have been re­moved as part of Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son’s ‘Liv­ing with COVID’ plan.

But there is one sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence be­tween those coun­tries and T&T—they have high­er vac­ci­na­tion rates. Here, vac­cine up­take is at a snail’s pace and on­ly about 50 per cent of el­i­gi­ble cit­i­zens are ful­ly im­mu­nised. That is why risk re­duc­tion mea­sures such as the mask man­date and lim­its on pub­lic gath­er­ings are still need­ed.

While the coun­try is in the ear­ly en­dem­ic phase of COVID-19 and a re­turn to nor­mal­cy and rel­a­tive sta­bil­i­ty is clos­er than ever, we are not yet out of the woods. The gains of the past few months can be quick­ly lost through ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour.

There­fore, the pub­lic health strat­e­gy should be ad­just­ed to in­clude a ro­bust cam­paign to re­in­force the pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures still nec­es­sary for T&T to suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate this new stage of COVID-19.

The en­dem­ic phase means that the dis­ease is set­tling in­to a sea­son­al pat­tern like oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry virus­es, but peo­ple can still get sick and die. Fu­ture surges will not be as dis­rup­tive as the re­cent Delta and Omi­cron waves but will still pose a risk to vul­ner­a­ble seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion.

So, while there is fi­nal­ly light at the end of the tun­nel for the first time since COVID-19 ar­rived in T&T, do not ex­pect a re­turn to life as we knew it pre-pan­dem­ic. Masks, vac­cines, sani­tis­ing and oth­er pre­cau­tions are still in T&T’s im­me­di­ate fu­ture, even with the wind­ing down of the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem.

How­ev­er, this pan­dem­ic-weary pop­u­la­tion can draw some com­fort from the news that con­sid­er­able progress has been made in the bat­tle against the coro­n­avirus. Vac­cines are now eas­i­ly avail­able, and lock­downs and cur­fews may not be need­ed in the fu­ture. But we must still wait a lit­tle while longer be­fore we can tru­ly feel com­fort­able about our re­sponse in the fight against the dis­ease.