Trinidad and To­ba­go’s COVID-19 tal­ly rose above 400 yes­ter­day with con­fir­ma­tion of 78 cas­es com­ing an­nounced by the Min­istry of Health.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram yes­ter­day pre­dict­ed a spike in COVID-19 cas­es due to the pub­lic’s re­fusal to ful­ly co­op­er­ate with the pub­lic health guide­lines aimed at pre­vent­ing its spread.

Af­ter months of be­ing de­clared virus-free, To­ba­go record­ed the sixth case of COVID-19 on Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 8).

To­ba­go has an­oth­er record­ed a pos­i­tive COVID-19 case, the is­land's sixth and the first in over four months.

 Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to why po­lice of­fi­cers from the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion failed to stop a T10 crick­et match that had over 1,000 spec­ta­tors on Wednes­day, al­though this was clear­ly in breach of the COVID-19 Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions guide­lines.

The coun­try’s COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ues to rise with an­oth­er 15 cas­es be­ing con­firmed by the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has heard Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s call for in­creased polic­ing of bars af­ter it was dis­cov­ered some of the cas­es of the lat­est wave of COVID-19 in­fec­tions were con­tract­ed in such es­tab­lish­ments. How­ev­er, Grif­fith says he will not stop there as his sights are al­so now trained on po­lit­i­cal mo­tor­cades which have mor­phed in­to “mo­bile bars.”

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTA) are ec­sta­t­ic about Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap prepa­ra­tion class­es for the Au­gust 20 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment in light of the re­cent uptick in lo­calised COVID-19 cas­es. How­ev­er, the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion (NAPSPA) does not be­lieve the de­ci­sion was war­rant­ed.

Pupils prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tion will do their work at home from to­day un­til the Au­gust 20 test - and bars and restau­rants are now the biggest COVID-19 risk.

The sec­ond phase of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s COVID-19 epi­dem­ic be­gan al­most two weeks ago with some 19 cit­i­zens be­ing in­fect­ed from a source which, de­spite re­cent dis­cov­er­ies, still re­mains un­known.

A sec­re­tary from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Cou­va North MP’s of­fice and her fam­i­ly are among those test­ed for COVID-19. As such, the rest of the of­fice staff is now quar­an­tined and oth­er Cou­va North elec­tion cam­paign­ers who may have been along­side the woman are now on alert.