Busi­ness cham­bers, al­most in uni­son, have ex­pressed con­cern that there could be an­oth­er lock­down if the cur­rent spike in COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ues.

Many busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing bars, cin­e­mas, restau­rants, gyms and even malls, have on­ly re­cent­ly been al­lowed to re­open their doors, bring­ing re­lief to thou­sands of work­ers who were un­em­ployed in the months of the lock­down.

In just the first ten days of No­vem­ber, how­ev­er, this coun­try has seen over 3,000 new cas­es and over 100 deaths - tak­ing the over­all death toll to a stun­ning 1,806 peo­ple. Hos­pi­tals ded­i­cat­ed to treat­ing pa­tients are full, with the sad sta­tis­tic that 93.1 per cent of those hos­pi­talised are un­vac­ci­nat­ed.

This is the grim re­al­i­ty is fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go just one month be­fore Christ­mas and 50 days shy of the end of the year.

2021 has been a year of highs and lows in this coun­try. As COVID rav­aged in the ear­ly part of the year things seemed hope­less, with the Gov­ern­ment then un­able to de­liv­er on the promise of vac­cines. By April, how­ev­er, we were in a bet­ter place as the vac­cine roll­out be­gan and as we head to mid-No­vem­ber, we are in the en­vi­able po­si­tion of hav­ing a range of vac­cines but with the up­take of them still at un­de­sir­able lev­els.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said last week­end that Gov­ern­ment has no in­ten­tion of ex­tend­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency.

The re­al­i­ty is that cur­rent­ly, there is free­dom of move­ment for most, as Forms 4-6 stu­dents are back in school, pub­lic ser­vants are back on the job and gen­er­al­ly, busi­ness is once again on the go. Truth be told, how­ev­er, the sta­tis­tics of the un­vac­ci­nat­ed con­tin­ue to pose a threat to any re­turn to nor­mal­cy.

On­ly 44.9 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion (628,467 cit­i­zens) have ac­cessed one dose of a vac­cine, while 44.2 per cent (618,792) are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. It means in a pop­u­la­tion of 1.3 peo­ple, close to 700,000 are still un­vac­ci­nat­ed. It is this group pos­ing the great­est threat to the coun­try. Every­one has free­dom of choice but the choice of some threat­en those who have cho­sen to give them­selves a fight­ing chance.

In every coun­try across the globe, the un­vac­ci­nat­ed are the ones most af­flict­ed and dy­ing from COVID. The Sin­ga­pore gov­ern­ment, hav­ing al­so put every­thing in place for its cit­i­zens to ac­cess vac­cines, this week passed an or­der that the un­vac­ci­nat­ed must pay for their health­care if they con­tract the virus. While the T&T Gov­ern­ment may nev­er take such dras­tic ac­tion, it is clear that with the dai­ly num­bers ris­ing, some hard de­ci­sions will have to be tak­en to en­sure pro­tec­tion of the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion.

Right now things look bleak. T&T can­not af­ford to con­tin­ue along this path, nor can we af­ford an­oth­er lock­down.

Clear­ly, the mes­sag­ing is not work­ing and the day-to-day signs of the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion are still not yet sink­ing in for some. How­ev­er, the on­ly way to en­sure all the sac­ri­fices made since last year to pre­vent a ma­jor health cri­sis do not go to waste, may be to take dras­tic de­ci­sions now to pro­tect some cit­i­zens from them­selves.