GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Avoid that Old Year’s night par­ty be­cause it can be a COVID-19 su­per-spread­er - and you will al­so at­tract po­lice at­ten­tion if par­ties at pri­vate homes car­ry a cov­er charge or “bring a bot­tle” arrange­ment.

As Thurs­day’s end of the year ap­proach­es, Gov­ern­ment, the Op­po­si­tion and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day all warned cit­i­zens to avoid mass gath­er­ings and pre­vent con­tin­u­ing COVID spread.

There have al­ready been a cou­ple oth­er su­per-spread­ers over the Christ­mas week­end and con­cerns have arisen that more will ex­pand the cur­rent sec­ond COVID wave which T&T’s ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

T&T’s first wave be­gan in March. Af­ter the phased re­open­ing of sec­tors, it was fol­lowed by a sec­ond wave which ex­pand­ed fol­low­ing the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion - caus­ing a re­turn to re­stric­tions.

To date, T&T’s had 7,115 COVID cas­es with 125 deaths.

Yes­ter­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said, “The min­istry has not­ed with some dis­may that some peo­ple aren’t ad­her­ing to pub­lic health mea­sures – es­pe­cial­ly with mask-wear­ing and con­gre­gat­ing.

“Please ad­here to mea­sures and let’s pre­vent su­per-spread­ers. Let’s not have a re-ac­cel­er­a­tion of the sec­ond wave which we’re not out of yet. Don’t have New Year’s Eve par­ties.”

Deyals­ingh said the min­istry’s aware that two big Old Year’s night par­ties are planned for Down-the-Is­lands and oth­ers are al­so planned in Trinidad and in To­ba­go.

“But these will be su­per-spread­ers - events where you have a large num­ber of peo­ple gath­ered in close prox­im­i­ty. Peo­ple get hap­py and for­get or aban­don pub­lic health mea­sures, talk­ing loud­ly and re­mov­ing masks to eat and drink.

“New Year’s eve is par­tic­u­lar­ly a haz­ard, since peo­ple hug and kiss when the New Year ar­rives – all su­per-spread­er po­ten­tial. So don’t be a su­per-spread­er and have gath­er­ings. If you’re in­vit­ed to one, please de­cline for your health’s sake.”

Deyals­ingh al­so ex­pressed con­cern at Box­ing Day sales which oc­curred at two large malls in South and North West Trinidad - which were crowd­ed.

“We’re ask­ing re­tail out­lets to man­age their crowds,” he said.

Mean­while, CoP Grif­fith al­so said po­lice had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of many planned events from Thurs­day on­wards, in­clud­ing in To­ba­go.

‘There’s been an ex­o­dus there and ac­tiv­i­ties or­gan­ised, es­pe­cial­ly at rent­ed vil­las, where large par­ties are planned,” Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia.

He said he’ll be among TTPS pa­trols out all over T&T while they have al­so sought the Coast Guard’s as­sis­tance for sea pa­trols.

“We al­so re­ceived fliers for par­ties and oth­er events planned in pri­vate homes from Thurs­day, Fri­day and the week­end, when at­ten­dees are be­ing asked for a cov­er charge or to bring a bot­tle,” Grif­fith said.

He added, “Even though there are pri­vate fam­i­ly events and gath­er­ings at home, the con­cept of hav­ing mass par­ties with a cov­er charge or peo­ple ‘bring­ing a bot­tle,’ would be con­sid­ered by me as a breach of the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions and po­lice will act ac­cord­ing­ly.”

A pri­vate home where a mass event is held - and a cov­er charge or “bring a bot­tle” sys­tem is in force - will be seen as a pub­lic place, he not­ed.

Grif­fith said this will give him the right to in­ter­vene, “And I will do so. I’m plead­ing with the pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble. I don’t want to sound like the Grinch this Christ­mas but please don’t breach the reg­u­la­tions. One night of en­joy­ment could even­tu­al­ly lead to a life­time of pain - for many.”

UNC: Avoid mass gath­er­ings

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Dave Tan­coo al­so urged cit­i­zens to avoid mass gath­er­ings, not­ing the emer­gence of the new COVID-19 strain means cit­i­zens must take their own pre­cau­tions.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, he said “We’re hear­ing ru­mours about par­ties set for the end of the year. We must con­tin­ue to urge cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion go­ing for­ward. The emer­gence of new more re­silient and dead­ly strains means that cit­i­zens must take their own pre­cau­tions. We can­not de­pend on the Gov­ern­ment.

“As such, we urge cit­i­zens to pro­tect them­selves and each oth­er, avoid the mass gath­er­ings, en­gage in the so­cial dis­tanc­ing and pre­cau­tions list­ed on the CDC web­site. We must do for our­selves what the Gov­ern­ment has failed to do.”

He added, “Stu­art Young and Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s in­con­sis­ten­cy in pol­i­cy in deal­ing with COVID con­tin­ues to put cit­i­zens at risk. From the start, the Gov­ern­ment’s words haven’t matched their ac­tions and has had the ef­fect of down­play­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of this vi­ral threat to our coun­try.”