Walking into the upstairs food court at Trincity Mall during lunchtime earlier this week the place looked like a ghost town.
Normally, a beehive of activity, especially during the vacation period, the food court was a shadow of its former self.
While many of the food outlets remained open, with staff prepared to serve, the customers were absent.
Also, notably missing were the tables and chairs previously provided for dining customers.
The doors to the cinema and the arcade remained shut.
But this situation is not unique to Trincity Mall.
Many businesses have been suffering this plight as the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions put in place to halt its spread in the country have made this the norm.
Two weeks ago, prime minister Dr Keith Rowley announced new restrictions, including all in-house dining in restaurants and bars being stopped and the closure of cinemas, as the country continues to face a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases.
Those restrictions are expected to be in place for at least the next two weeks.
With the numbers of positive cases rising daily, many fear that further restrictions may be implemented.
But what will this mean for businesses?
“We cannot survive a second lockdown,” Jai Leladharsingh, the manager of the Couva Point Lisas Chamber of Commerce and coordinator of the Confederation of Regional Business Chambers told Guardian Media.
“We are scared,” Leladharsingh said.
Leladharsingh said businesses are still trying to recover from the last time this country had to put a lockdown in place and the situation caused “economic chaos”.
The first COVID-19 positive case was recorded in T&T on March 12.
And on March 21, the government announced restrictions on gatherings at public places and restaurants and bars were ordered closed until further notice.
On March 29, a “Stay at Home” Order also came into effect.
“The government needs to come with a proper education programme regarding managing COVID, but at the same time, they need consistent dialogue and engagement with the business community on what support we need to get, that is the issue right now because consumer demand is low and confidence is weak and how can we work together, not the state alone, but the state and other stakeholders to get things done,” Leladharsingh said.
“Right now we cannot manage another lockdown but if you want to put strict laws to manage the health protocol and you are having the police to ensure the protocols are adhered to then that is not a problem,” he said.
Ricardo Mohammed, president of the Eastern Business and Merchants Association, said he believes the country may have jumped the gun with the first lockdown.
“During the first lockdown, my personal belief is that it was not structured properly in terms of the closure of businesses when we were dealing with import cases. I think consideration should have been given to what import case spread means and they should have examined what were the possible outcomes for community spread and even after the first 21 days of the initial lockdown they could have opened the doors for other commercial activity being proactive enough to put stringent measures in place, for example, wearing masks because we did not have community spread at that time,” Mohammed said.
“It is my view that we had an unnecessary lockdown that was detrimental to the economics of this country by not strategically planning effectively for that,” he said.
Mohammed said that 90 per cent of this country’s small businesses were severely impacted by the first lockdown.
He said this would have resulted in staff being laid off.
“If we are to undergo a proper lockdown now it will hurt the businesses significantly but I think it should be strategically planned in such a way that we allow the essentials to open, we allow other businesses to open providing that they abide by all strict COVID-19 protocols I believe that if businesses do what they are supposed to do by observing strict COVID-19 protocols they can function just like any other business that is functioning and they could still have the potential to allow their businesses to survive,” he said.
Mohammed said if proper measures are put in place even bars should be able to operate within certain guidelines.
“With proper stringent checks, for those who do not abide by the policies of COVID-19 then shut those people down,” he said.
Mohammed said when the country had the first five community spread cases then a 21-day lockdown should have been implemented.
Kiran Singh of the Greater San Fernando Chamber of Commerce said the micro and small economies are the hardest hit by the restrictions.
“What we have witnessed and what we have experienced is that during the first lockdown after the advent of the pandemic our businesses suffered tremendously because we had to close all of our doors for basically three months so there was not any business activity, no commercial activity in the MSME’s sector in particular,” he said.
“San Fernando depends a large part on the retail sector to thrive within the economy and what has happened is when the economy was reopened in June we were not able to even resuscitate the business sector and the spike in actions within the last couple of weeks has created not only fear but it has dampened business activity to the point where we have not been able to recover from the initial lockdown,” Singh said,
Singh said the COVID-19 may be here to stay and therefore we have to find a way to operate with it.
He also applauded the decision to discussion mandatory wearing of face masks in the Parliament.