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Friday, July 18, 2025

Kamla: Government has no clear plan on COVID-19

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1768 days ago
20200914
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Abraham Diaz

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment has no clear plan on how to han­dle the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion in this coun­try.

She was re­spond­ing to the lat­est an­nounce­ments by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, to main­tain the sta­tus quo for an­oth­er four weeks to Oc­to­ber 11.

“The de­f­i­n­i­tion of in­san­i­ty is do­ing the same things over and over and ex­pect­ing a dif­fer­ent re­sult each time. As the num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es ex­plodes with ris­ing deaths, the Row­ley regime is sim­ply re­peat­ing the same tired pro­pa­gan­da lines over and over,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

She said it is “de­press­ing­ly clear” to all cit­i­zens that the Gov­ern­ment has no clear and fo­cused plan to ad­e­quate­ly deal with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

She added: “As the Prime Min­is­ter ad­dressed the na­tion to­day, he said, “We could take some com­fort that our sit­u­a­tion has not wors­ened.” This, in spite of the fact that in the last month, we’ve seen an in­crease from 153 cas­es and 8 deaths to 2,076 cas­es and 50 deaths. Row­ley has once again of­fered no new plans to curb the ris­ing rate of in­fec­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned why at the end of the 28-day cy­cle of lock­down mea­sures, the prime min­is­ter would an­nounce yet an­oth­er 28-day cy­cle of the same mea­sures “that have al­ready presided over ex­po­nen­tial growth in COVID-19 cas­es.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to blame every­one else but “their failed re­sponse to this pan­dem­ic.”

She added: “The Op­po­si­tion is pleased that the Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed our sug­ges­tion to pur­chase over 100,000 rapid test­ing kits, how­ev­er, when asked to­day on their avail­abil­i­ty for use, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh said he had to wait “for the man­u­fac­tur­er.”

“Cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to com­plain about the lengthy time tak­en to re­ceive their test re­sults which again lim­its our ca­pac­i­ty to ob­tain true da­ta and con­trol the virus spread.”

On be­half of her par­ty, she re­sub­mit­ted sug­ges­tions for im­me­di­ate steps that the par­ty be­lieves should be tak­en to slow the spread of the virus.

They in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of a COVID-19 In­tel­li­gence Unit where all Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Health agen­cies will com­mu­ni­cate and ex­e­cute strate­gic plans and op­er­a­tions in uni­son and in re­al-time, and the de­ploy­ment of teams of Health Of­fi­cers to en­sure COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions’ com­pli­ance by busi­ness­es and the pub­lic.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in­crease stocks of PPE for our front­line work­ers, and in­crease the num­ber of beds avail­able for pa­tients suf­fer­ing from more se­ri­ous symp­toms,” she said.

She urged cit­i­zens to fol­low the pub­lic health guide­lines and take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies.


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