Renu­ka Singh

Drink your White Oak and Co­ca-Co­la at home.

That was the ad­vice from Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day, af­ter he said he was ap­palled at the be­hav­iour of some cit­i­zens even as health of­fi­cials and the Gov­ern­ment have im­ple­ment­ed more re­stric­tions and urged more vig­i­lance to stave off the lat­est wave of COVID-19.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing to up­date cit­i­zens on the lat­est re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed and the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing the treat­ment of COVID pa­tients at fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try, Deyals­ingh said he had dri­ven through down­town Port-of-Spain hours ear­li­er and was brought to tears when he saw peo­ple drink­ing and con­gre­gat­ing in fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of the pub­lic health or­di­nances.

Deyals­ingh said he saw a group of peo­ple sit­ting with­out masks drink­ing White Oak and Co­ca-Co­la and there was al­so no so­cial dis­tanc­ing in clear breach of the pre­scribed pro­to­cols.

“I have no prob­lem with peo­ple drink­ing their White Oak that hour of the morn­ing but do it at home,” he said.

The min­is­ter said he had paid spe­cial at­ten­tion to the tone and tenor of some of the med­ical ex­perts who spoke on the dire sit­u­a­tion in the par­al­lel health sys­tem be­fore him dur­ing yes­ter­day’s me­dia brief­ing. He said it mir­rored his own sen­ti­ments when he saw the group lim­ing and drink­ing on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade ear­li­er in the day.

“It is the same way I felt this morn­ing dri­ving in Port-of-Spain,” he said.

“And I wept, I re­al­ly wept when I saw what was go­ing on at 8.30. A to­tal dis­re­gard for the pub­lic health mea­sures.”

Deyals­ingh said he pulled aside and a “tear came to his eye.”

“We don’t know what else to do to get the man on the street to un­der­stand how se­vere this is,” Deyals­ingh said.