Trinidad and To­ba­go is not part of the Caribbean trav­el bub­ble ex­pect­ed to the in­sti­tut­ed at the end of the month in Bar­ba­dos.

Over the week­end, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Amor Mot­t­ley an­nounced the new trav­el bub­ble com­ing in­to ef­fect at the end of this month for ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers with neg­a­tive PCR tests. Trav­ellers from coun­tries named in the bub­ble will not be re­quired to do PCR tests or quar­an­tine up­on ar­rival in Bar­ba­dos.

How­ev­er, cit­i­zens from T&T, Ja­maica, Be­lize, Guyana and the Ba­hamas were not in­clud­ed in this re­ju­ve­nat­ed trav­el bub­ble, which means vac­ci­nat­ed cit­i­zens from these na­tions will still be test­ed at the Grant­ly Adams Air­port and un­vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers will be re­quired to go in­to a five-day quar­an­tine.

In her ad­dress to the na­tion on Sat­ur­day, Mot­t­ley list­ed the coun­tries out­side the bub­ble and what their cit­i­zens will be re­quired to do on en­try to Bar­ba­dos.

“But guess what? They’re sub­ject­ed to the same pro­to­cols that would have ex­ist­ed be­fore, so if they are vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons, come with a neg­a­tive PCR and land at our air­port, they’ll have to have the sec­ond PCR test as all oth­er vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons do now and then they’d be free to come in­to the coun­try.

“If they are un­vac­ci­nat­ed, you know the drill, it’s a longer pe­ri­od, five days be­fore they have the PCR test in the quar­an­tine,” Mot­t­ley said, adding that this gives lay­ers of pro­tec­tion among the lay­ers of risk.

This is the sec­ond such at­tempt at a Cari­com trav­el bub­ble.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Bar­ba­dos’ am­bas­sador to Cari­com David Comis­siong laid out the frame­work for the trav­el bub­ble and the coun­tries in and out of the safe trav­el sphere.

A ma­jor fac­tor of that ini­tial bub­ble was that cit­i­zens of the in­clud­ed na­tions were not re­quired to take PCR or COVID-19 tests be­fore or up­on en­try. Those cit­i­zens are al­so not re­quired to un­der­go any quar­an­tine.

The bub­ble was ini­ti­at­ed on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2020. At that time, T&T was not in­clud­ed in the trav­el bub­ble ei­ther but was giv­en clear­ance to en­ter by the fol­low­ing month once COVID in­fec­tion num­bers re­mained low.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both the Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne yes­ter­day but nei­ther re­spond­ed.

On Sat­ur­day, Row­ley said that T&T is still on track to re­open bor­ders in Ju­ly.