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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Permitted groups back down to 10 as PM announces new COVID guidelines

by

Sampson Nanton
1803 days ago
20200731
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced a change in the num­ber of peo­ple who can con­gre­gate in groups, from 25 to 10.

He made the an­nounce­ment at a news con­fer­ence Fri­day, fol­low­ing 13 new cas­es in two days.

The prime min­is­ter said the gov­ern­ment and health of­fi­cials were mak­ing the change in an ef­fort to re­duce the spread of the virus.

Hours be­fore his an­nounce­ment, the Min­istry of Health an­nounced five new cas­es, two of which re­quired in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine the ori­gins.

The min­istry an­nounce eight new cas­es on Thurs­day.

He said the gov­ern­ment will main­tain the pro­to­cols of the num­bers at fu­ner­als, in­doors and at church­es.

He said the gov­ern­ment will al­so ask the pub­lic ser­vice to re­duce the num­ber of pub­lic ser­vants who are out at one time by hav­ing them come to work al­pha­bet­i­cal­ly and ro­tate them by days for the next 14 days.

The prime min­is­ter added that the aim is to re­duce the pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple out in the streets and among them­selves by 50 per cent.

He said the gov­ern­ment is very con­cerned about where the known peo­ple got in­fec­tions, be­ing in schools and in bars, adding that the gov­ern­ment got in­for­ma­tion on an­oth­er school that has to be shut down be­cause con­tact-trac­ing led to it.

He ad­vised that the gov­ern­ment will not stop the SEA ex­am­i­na­tions at this time, but added that if the trend of cas­es ris­ing con­tin­ues, the gov­ern­ment will act.

Dr Row­ley said the gov­ern­ment will al­so act on bars and restau­rants if so­cial dis­tanc­ing guide­lines are not ad­hered to.

“We have found di­rect links about peo­ple in­fect­ed in bars and we are keep­ing bars and restau­rants un­der very close watch for the next few days,” he said.

The prime min­is­ter ad­vised that the gov­ern­ment is al­so keep­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion un­der watch and will act if the cur­rent rend con­tin­ues over the next 72 hours or so.

Re­gard­ing peo­ple who are seek­ing ex­emp­tions from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, he said that as of Ju­ly 29, a to­tal of 5,580 peo­ple sought ex­emp­tions to leave the coun­try.

Of those, 3,556 were grant­ed ex­emp­tions to leave and are al­ready mak­ing trav­el arrange­ments to do so. A fur­ther 2,024 are still in the pipeline.

He said the num­ber of those who ap­plied to en­ter T&T as of Ju­ly 29, was 5,539.

Of that num­ber, ex­emp­tions were grant­ed to 2,250 and 3,289 are await­ing ex­emp­tions.

He de­bunked the claim by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that 10,000 peo­ple were be­ing locked out of the coun­try, sug­gest­ing that the tal­lied the num­bers of those wish­ing to leave and those wish­ing to come in be­fore she came up with that fig­ure.


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