Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­cod­ed its first case of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion of the nov­el coro­n­avirus, COVID-19.

This means the per­son con­tract­ed the in­fec­tion while in the coun­try.Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease sent out by the Min­istry of Health min­utes be­fore a press con­fer­ence at the Park Street Head Of­fice on Tues­day the per­son “is a pri­ma­ry con­tact of an ex­ist­ing re­cent im­port­ed case.

“This pa­tient is the sec­ond new case re­port­ed for to­day.

The oth­er had a re­cent trav­el his­to­ry. Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry’s re­lease, “the per­son was iso­lat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly up­on dis­em­bark­ing the air­craft at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and is be­ing treat­ed in iso­la­tion in Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

Con­tact trac­ing was ini­ti­at­ed.”These cas­es bring T&T’s fig­ure to 53 con­firmed cas­es while 332 sam­ples were sub­mit­ted to the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) for test­ing.

The oth­er 52 cas­es were im­port­ed cas­es; peo­ple who con­tract­ed the in­fec­tion while out­side of the coun­try.

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Re­porter: Rishard Khan