KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Frus­trat­ed at lan­guish­ing at sea for four months, some Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al crew mem­bers in quar­an­tine at State fa­cil­i­ties say the gov­ern­ment is risk­ing their lives.

The work­ers ar­gue that the Min­istry of Health is not telling the whole sto­ry at its COVID-19 up­dates. Of great con­cern was the mix­ture of high-risk crew mem­bers who quar­an­tined in the En­chant­ment of the Seas’ Or­ange and Yel­low zones and are now shar­ing com­mu­nal spaces with those who were in the Green zone.

The zones sig­ni­fy the lev­el of ex­po­sure to the virus.

The Red zone was for those with COVID-19.

Or­ange was for those show­ing symp­toms and in need of mon­i­tor­ing. Yel­low was for those who stepped down from the Red or Or­ange zones and are still in need of mon­i­tor­ing. Green were those with no symp­toms.

The crew mem­bers not­ed that there was a spread among cruise ship pas­sen­gers who the min­istry pre­vi­ous­ly quar­an­tined in Camp Ba­lan­dra where they shared com­mu­nal fa­cil­i­ties. 

“By mov­ing us in­to com­mu­nal liv­ing fa­cil­i­ties, the Min­is­ter of Health and the CMO have now placed us all at greater risk of con­tract­ing the virus should there be any la­tent or asymp­to­matic cas­es.

This ac­tion is counter-in­tu­itive and has proven to be very dis­tress­ing, serv­ing on­ly to add to our grow­ing angst and frus­tra­tion,” a crew mem­ber said.

A few crew mem­bers test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 so far.

How­ev­er, crew mem­bers said those mem­bers most like­ly board­ed the ves­sel in Bar­ba­dos, al­ready in­fect­ed. They said there was no room for ex­po­sure as each mem­ber had a cab­in.

A cruise ship em­ploy­ee told Guardian Me­dia said the re­main­ing 290-plus crew mem­bers who al­ready sub­mit­ted to two na­sopha­ryn­geal tests and were neg­a­tive are now man­dat­ed to un­der­go a third test ‘out of an abun­dance of cau­tion’.

The mem­ber said health of­fi­cials sep­a­rat­ed the crew among at least six fa­cil­i­ties: Debe, Cou­va, Tacarigua, Cau­ra, San­gre Grande and Ba­lan­dra. 

“Ar­riv­ing at the as­signed fa­cil­i­ty on June 30, it is as­ton­ish­ing that the Min­is­ter of Health, who pub­licly spec­u­lat­ed about the suit­abil­i­ty and ef­fec­tive­ness of our quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties on­board the En­chant­ment of the Seas (where we were iso­lat­ed in sin­gle berth cab­ins with our own toi­lets and baths), sees noth­ing wrong with hav­ing us moved to com­mu­nal liv­ing fa­cil­i­ties—open wards with shared liv­ing and pub­lic spaces, in­clud­ing toi­lets and baths. Not even a cur­tain or a screen to sep­a­rate you from your neigh­bour. 

An­oth­er crew mem­ber at an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty said it was un­fair that those who test­ed neg­a­tive twice have to en­dure fur­ther quar­an­tine while those who ini­tial­ly test­ed pos­i­tive are now home.

Crew mem­bers al­so com­plained that the food is un­healthy.

At yes­ter­day’s COVID-19 up­date, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said quar­an­tine for peo­ple re­turn­ing to T&T and those who test­ed pos­i­tive have dif­fer­ent pro­to­cols.

He said those who test­ed neg­a­tive twice are still at risk of de­vel­op­ing symp­toms. He said the last two out of six crew mem­bers who ini­tial­ly test­ed pos­i­tive were again swabbed af­ter sev­en days and fol­low­ing two neg­a­tive re­sults, 24 hours apart, got dis­charged on Tues­day. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said this pro­to­col was al­ways there and ap­plied to the cruise ship pas­sen­gers who quar­an­tined in Ba­lan­dra.

Paras­ram said those who test­ed pos­i­tive were from the Or­ange and Yel­low zones. The re­main­ing crew mem­bers are low-risk. He said the min­istry is just us­ing the fa­cil­i­ties as hold­ing bays un­til an­oth­er round of na­sopha­ryn­geal swab­bing on Fri­day. Once the re­sults re­turn by Sat­ur­day and are neg­a­tive, they can dis­charge mem­bers on Sun­day.

Re­spond­ing to the crew mem­bers’ com­plaints of six peo­ple in one room, Paras­ram said this should not be the case and would check on the mat­ter. He said health per­son­nel are en­sur­ing that crew mem­bers wear masks, dis­tance them­selves from each oth­er and sani­tise.