An­na-Lisa Paul

One day af­ter the TT Safe Zone sys­tem took ef­fect on Oc­to­ber 11, an in­frac­tion has been re­port­ed to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a probe was launched in­to an un­vac­ci­nat­ed man who it was be­lieved went to a cin­e­ma, a claim he lat­er de­nied.

The Min­istry of Health has said that pub­lic health in­spec­tors car­ry­ing out rou­tine ex­er­cis­es in the coun­ty of St An­drews/St David found one bar own­er with­out proof of vac­ci­na­tion.

Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health, Dr Al­lana Quam­i­na-Best said the ex­er­cise was car­ried out on Tues­day as pub­lic health in­spec­tors vis­it­ed busi­ness­es that had cho­sen to par­tic­i­pate in the TT Safe Zone sys­tem.

In the TT Safe Zone sys­tem, on­ly ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers are al­lowed to work and or ac­cess bars, restau­rants, cin­e­mas, the­atres, wa­ter parks, pri­vate mem­bers’ clubs, gam­ing hous­es, and gyms.

In the case of em­ploy­ees, copies of their vac­ci­nat­ed cards must be kept on the premis­es at all times, while pa­trons need to have proof of vac­ci­na­tion and one form of valid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion on them.

Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, Quam­i­na-Best said pub­lic health of­fi­cials in­spect­ed a to­tal of 18 restau­rants; 13 bars; one gam­ing house; and a gym – and found the bar own­er to be in breach of the safe zone reg­u­la­tions af­ter he failed to pro­duce proof of his COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion.

“There was one bar in which the own­er did not have proof of be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed, and so that mat­ter has now been re­ferred to the TTPS for their fol­low-up,” she said.

Pro­vid­ing a fur­ther break­down of the find­ings at the 13 bars in­spect­ed, Quam­i­na-Best re­vealed that sev­en of them were found to be sat­is­fac­to­ry, while one had opt­ed to op­er­ate a take-out ser­vice.

Of the 18 restau­rants in­spect­ed, on­ly two chose to be part of the safe zone ini­tia­tive, while the re­main­ing 16 con­tin­ued to op­er­ate a take-out ser­vice.

The lone gym and sin­gle gam­ing house as­sessed were found to be com­pli­ant with the Safe Zone poli­cies.

The St An­drews/St David Coun­ty which stretch­es from Cu­mu­to to To­co, con­tains a to­tal of 356 es­tab­lish­ments po­ten­tial­ly el­i­gi­ble to be deemed Safe Zones in­clud­ing 133 bars; 17 gam­ing hous­es/bet­ting pools; six fit­ness stu­dios or gyms; 60 pri­vate mem­bers’ clubs; 88 restau­rants; and 52 spe­cial restau­rants.

The pub­lic health in­spec­tors are com­prised of trained per­son­nel from the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Re­gard­ing peo­ple who have ap­plied for a de­fer­ral or ex­emp­tion from be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed, Quam­i­na-Best re­in­forced, “If that per­son is an em­ploy­ee of one of the safe zone es­tab­lish­ments, that em­ploy­ee must pro­duce to the em­ploy­er a neg­a­tive rapid test or a neg­a­tive PCR test every 14 days and a copy of the re­sults must be kept on the premis­es for in­spec­tion.”

For un­vac­ci­nat­ed pa­trons in pos­ses­sion of a de­fer­ral or ex­emp­tion from be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed, she added, “They too must pro­vide to the own­er/op­er­a­tor of the safe zone busi­ness, a copy of the rapid test or neg­a­tive PCR test which was is­sued no more than 48 hours pri­or to them seek­ing en­try to the restau­rant or bar. A copy of this doc­u­ment must be kept on the premis­es for in­spec­tion.”

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions re­lat­ing to the so­cial me­dia claim by the al­leged un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­son who claimed he was able to ac­cess a cin­e­ma Safe Zone to watch a movie, Quam­i­na-Best promised this would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. (See more in 2nd sto­ry on this page)

She said, “What that per­son has now done is ex­pose them­selves and the es­tab­lish­ment for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the TTPS.”

“The reg­u­la­tion is quite clear. An own­er or op­er­a­tor of a busi­ness who at any time is found to be in con­tra­ven­tion, com­mits an of­fence and shall be is­sued a fixed penal­ty no­tice. The same ap­plies to a pa­tron who has en­tered the TT Safe Zone area with­out the re­quired doc­u­men­ta­tion. They too can be is­sued a fixed penal­ty no­tice be­cause they have com­mit­ted an of­fence. I imag­ine our col­leagues at the TTPS will be fol­low­ing through on the so­cial me­dia post­ing.”

She re­it­er­at­ed that busi­ness­es found to be in breach of the Safe Zone reg­u­la­tions will face a $25,000 fine, while an un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­son found with­in a safe zone will be fined $5,000.

Quam­i­na-Best re­vealed they have had to re­fer nine per­sons to the Po­lice Ser­vice that would have breached home quar­an­tine or­ders in her coun­ty dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to present.

“In a few in­stances, we have had to re­move per­sons from their homes in­to State su­per­vised quar­an­tine to en­sure they main­tain iso­la­tion from every­one else, but by and large, we do see per­sons try­ing to stick to the rules.”

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram is sched­uled to meet with po­lice next week as a fol­low-up to last week’s ses­sion which re­lat­ed to en­force­ment of the reg­u­la­tions.

He said “The Chief Pub­lic Health In­spec­tor is our fo­cal point from the MoH and he is pro­vid­ing me with a sta­tus up­date every Fri­day hope­ful­ly, so as week­ly up­date as to what is hap­pen­ing in all coun­ties across the coun­try in terms of com­pli­ance, in­spec­tions, breach­es.”

On the digi­ti­sa­tion of the vac­ci­na­tion card sys­tem, Paras­ram was un­able to pro­vide a time­line as he said they con­tin­ued to work with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to set up a dig­i­tal client list­ing.