There are many benefits to vaccination such as reducing the risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19.
An added benefit is the opportunity to forgo any quarantine or additional testing upon entry into T&T for a fully vaccinated traveller.
However, the Chief Medical Officer, Roshan Parasram, is advising that these travellers still need to be vigilant.
“We’re asking everyone– especially in this time where there’s a significant amount of persons going for travel to visit families and relatives- when you return home you look carefully at your symptomatology for that period which is your first 14 days and if you do have symptoms that you test very quickly, isolate yourself and then let us know,” he said.
“So we’re relying on the collective responsibility of the population at large to do the right thing and let us know.”
He also advised travellers to keep up practices such as mask-wearing when abroad, even if it’s not a legal requirement like in T&T.
“In a lot of countries, for example in the US, there was not a mandate to wear masks. So just because the country does not have a mandate to wear masks doesn’t mean you go abroad and you don’t wear a mask. The mask will keep you safe, it prevents the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19 so we’re asking even while you’re away- take the necessary precautions and follow the three Ws (wear your mask, wash your hands, watch your distance) and of course, vaccination goes a long way in terms of severity of the illness,” he said.
He said the border entry protocols remain in place and will reduce the risk of importing the disease.
“Once we have people moving from one place to the next, inevitably you’d have viruses moving along with them. There’s no system that you can put in place with a border that is open in terms of allowing persons to come in from countries in the world- that is foolproof in picking up viral illnesses,” he noted. —Rishard Khan
