JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

T&T borders remain closed

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
1864 days ago
20200530
 Minister of National Security Stuart Young

Minister of National Security Stuart Young

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Al­though ma­jor eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty is set to re­sume on Mon­day and will in­clude in­creased flights by Caribbean Air­lines as the air-bridge opens up, this coun­try's bor­ders will re­main closed for the time be­ing.

How­ev­er, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said ex­emp­tions con­tin­ue to be grant­ed for na­tion­als who re­main out­side of T&T, as well as those want­i­ng to leave T&T to re­turn to their home coun­tries.

Dur­ing Sat­ur­day's me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said dis­cus­sions were un­der­way with health of­fi­cials as it re­lat­ed to the "com­mer­cial repa­tri­a­tion" of cit­i­zens.

He said, "We have a steam of peo­ple on the out­side who want to come in."

Even though they ini­tial­ly start­ed with no en­try and then moved very slow­ly to al­low small num­bers back in, Row­ley said, "We want to move a lit­tle more ag­gres­sive­ly to bring cat­e­gories of peo­ple in."

Warn­ing that strin­gent con­trol still need­ed to be ex­er­cised, Row­ley ad­mit­ted, "The biggest threat to us now as a na­tion in re­spond­ing to the virus is get­ting in­fect­ed by an in­flow of peo­ple from the out­side, in­to this pop­u­la­tion."

Em­pathis­ing with those on the out­side who con­tin­ue to ap­peal for per­mis­sion to re­turn to T&T, the prime min­is­ter said, "We make the de­ci­sion at the bor­der based on how many peo­ple we think we can safe­ly bring in and suf­fi­cient­ly man­age the risk, that if there is in­fec­tion by per­sons com­ing or by com­mu­ni­ty spread here, that we do have the health in­fra­struc­ture to cope with the num­bers that could flare up."

He spoke about the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to bring in 275 stu­dents who are scat­tered across the re­gion and will com­plete ex­ams by the end of Ju­ly.

Row­ley said in or­der to en­sure the manda­to­ry two-week quar­an­tine pe­ri­od was ad­hered to, they had to keep their eyes on the avail­abil­i­ty of beds to house re­turn­ing na­tion­als.

"For those peo­ple who can fund them­selves to get in quick­ly, we will co­op­er­ate a bit more with them to get them in, but against the back­ground of how that has an im­pact on the rooms that are avail­able be­cause there are dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of rooms," Row­ley said.

Claim­ing that any up­surge in the vi­ral spread lo­cal­ly would im­pact the repa­tri­a­tion process, Row­ley said it would lead to a re­duc­tion in the num­bers re­turn­ing and for those com­ing from ar­eas where the virus is wide­spread. He said care­ful checks had to be done to safe­guard the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion from in­fec­tion.

He said the moves to bring in ex­ter­nal stu­dents and na­tion­als from cruise ships would place T&T in a po­si­tion where most of the avail­able ca­pac­i­ty would be used up, even though it is on­ly for quar­an­tine.

Young said even though dis­cus­sions had been held with cruise ship op­er­a­tors, they were still un­clear ex­act­ly how many T&T na­tion­als were strand­ed on such ves­sels.

Re­veal­ing one cruise ship op­er­a­tor re­cent­ly agreed for the boat to be used as a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty, Young said they were con­cerned af­ter eight peo­ple test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 on a cruise ship in St Vin­cent.

He said if that ship comes in, they would de­cant peo­ple to a land-use sys­tem in batch­es, which re­quired a lot of care­ful man­age­ment.

The par­al­lel health sys­tem has a to­tal bed ca­pac­i­ty of 922, which in­cludes 200 beds at Cou­va; 100 beds at Cau­ra; and be­tween 50 to 60 beds at the Au­gus­tus Long fa­cil­i­ty which are all hos­pi­tal-type set­tings. The are beds spread across sev­er­al step-down and quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties.

Young, Deyals­ingh and the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram are sched­uled to meet this com­ing week to dis­cuss how they could ex­tend ca­pac­i­ty out­side of the hos­pi­tal set­tings.

Up to 4 pm yes­ter­day, tests sub­mit­ted to the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency and the UWI Lab stood at 3,131 and 1,300 com­mu­ni­ty tests have so far been con­duct­ed.

COVID-19 deaths


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

Jaggasar returns as National Parang president

Yesterday
Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Jamaican Maroons celebrate, question land rights

Yesterday
Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford’s holistic mission

to transform the lives of girls

2 days ago
Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Nicole Drayton’s breast cancer journey–Fear, faith, and fighting back

2 days ago