JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, August 11, 2025

Bars, gyms, beaches open; borders still closed

by

Loyse Vincent
1877 days ago
20200620
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley speaking at a press conference at the Scarborough Library Facility, Tobago.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley speaking at a press conference at the Scarborough Library Facility, Tobago.

All cit­i­zens anx­ious to vis­it their favourite wa­ter­ing­holes or those yearn­ing for that cur­ry duck lime by the riv­er with friends will be able to do so from Mon­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced that all bars, gyms and beach­es will re­open Mon­day. How­ev­er, all busi­ness­es must close at 10 pm.

He made this an­nounce­ment dur­ing a COVID-19 press con­fer­ence at the Scar­bor­ough Li­brary Fa­cil­i­ty, To­ba­go, Sat­ur­day as he an­nounced the fifth phase of the Gov­ern­ment's re­open­ing plan af­ter it be­gan shut­ting down the coun­try in March to pre­vent the spread of the virus.

The PM an­nounced that T&T's "num­bers are hold­ing well" but that the "coun­try re­mains ex­posed to the rigours of the virus."

Among the oth­er mea­sures he an­nounced was the full re­open­ing of the pub­lic ser­vice. In-house din­ing will re­sume at restau­rants. Cin­e­mas, bars, casi­nos and mem­ber’s clubs will re­open from to­mor­row as well. Beach­es, rivers, amuse­ment parks gyms and the zoo will al­so be open to the pub­lic from Mon­day.

Malls will al­so be al­lowed to ful­ly re­open in­clud­ing food courts. Team sports will re­sume but with no spec­ta­tors, and pub­lic trans­porta­tion in­clud­ing the in­ter-is­land fer­ry ser­vice will re­vert to 100 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

Ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tutes will be al­lowed to re­open for ex­am­i­na­tions.

He al­so said there can be any num­ber of peo­ple at wed­dings and fu­ner­als as long as at­ten­dees ob­serve all pro­to­cols and guide­lines es­tab­lished for places of wor­ship. Places of wor­ship will no longer have to be re­strict­ed to one-hour ser­vices as reg­u­lar ser­vice times can re­sume, but wor­ship­pers must al­so con­tin­ue to prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing and fol­low the req­ui­site guide­lines.

Oth­er pub­lic gath­er­ings must not ex­ceed 25 peo­ple.

Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram gave an overview of the guide­lines. "We are ask­ing that any con­gre­ga­tion stick to a max­i­mum of 25 per­sons in a pub­lic space which in­clud­ed beach­es and rivers. Please con­form to hand wash­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion guide­lines and the wear­ing of face masks where ap­plic­a­ble," he said. Be­fore now on­ly ten peo­ple could gath­er in pub­lic spaces.

The CMO al­so warned that gym own­ers and op­er­a­tors should al­so en­sure that sur­faces in shared ar­eas be sani­tised on a reg­u­lar ba­sis.

Bad news for par­ty­go­ers, how­ev­er. The Prime Min­is­ter said "par­ty boats and club­bing...be­cause you by your very na­ture are not go­ing to be able to con­form to the pro­to­cols re­quired, these ac­tiv­i­ties are not per­mit­ted."

The coun­try’s bor­ders will re­main closed at this time with ex­emp­tions be­ing grant­ed to na­tion­als wish­ing to re­turn home. How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley said that pri­or­i­ty would be giv­en to "peo­ple that left tem­porar­i­ly to work abroad or re­ceive med­ical treat­ment," peo­ple who reg­u­lar­ly re­side in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Row­ley, al­though the fi­nan­cial cost of main­ten­ing the day-to-day op­er­a­tions at Caribbean Air­lines is be­ing done at a loss to tax­pay­ers, it must be done "due to the lev­el of risk and the un­ac­cept­able eco­nom­ics of go­ing in one di­rec­tion." He said op­er­a­tions would re­sume at soon as pos­si­ble in the first in­stance con­duct­ing se­mi-char­ters to move peo­ple in and out of the coun­try, when there is no longer a pub­lic health risk.

COVID-19


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored