The Min­istry of Health is brac­ing for a rise in the num­ber of pa­tients they will have to test and pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es this week­end. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh made the com­ment at a press con­fer­ence Friday, as he an­nounced a sec­ond death and re­vealed this week­end would be the coun­try’s tip­ping point in fight­ing this glob­al pan­dem­ic.

The pub­lic will still be able to go to the shop, gro­cery and drug store from Mon­day. But if you’re not do­ing that and aren’t among cer­tain es­sen­tial ser­vices which con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing, you’ll have to tell po­lice why you’re out­side and could ul­ti­mate­ly face a $50,000 fine and six months’ jail.

Three more peo­ple who were quar­an­tined at Camp Ba­lan­dra, af­ter re­turn­ing to Trinidad from a Caribbean cruise, were trans­port­ed to the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal last night for treat­ment for the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19).

To­ba­go’s sec­ond pos­i­tive nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pa­tient does not have any trav­el his­to­ry, a sit­u­a­tion which now his co-work­ers at the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal wary about whether they were ex­posed to the virus.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is pre­pared to take ac­tion against any­one who spreads unau­tho­rized in­for­ma­tion.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram on Fri­day con­firmed that the two pa­tients who have so far died from COVID-19 will not be af­ford­ed cer­e­monies at homes or church­es where the body is present and this will be the pro­to­col go­ing for­ward.

The Min­istry of Health has re­leased the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Ch. 12 No. 4 made by the Min­is­ter un­der sec­tion 105 of the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance and the full list of Es­sen­tial Ser­vices:

A 55-year-old man, who was shot mul­ti­ple times while in St James on Fri­day, has died at hos­pi­tal.

Fol­low­ing the tem­po­rary clo­sure of the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion, there are re­ports that more COVID-19 scares have oc­curred at two oth­er po­lice sta­tions—in San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do.

Po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed five men for Au­to­mat­ed Teller Ma­chine (ATM) tam­per­ing ear­li­er this week, fol­low­ing re­ports of sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty at a First Cit­i­zens’ Bank ATM in Port of Spain.

Sco­tia­bank T&T Lim­it­ed has said that the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has brought with it many changes– in­clud­ing the abil­i­ty to move around and get usu­al day- to- day busi­ness done. It said bank­ing re­mains a crit­i­cal ser­vice and ac­cess to cus­tomers' fi­nances is im­por­tant.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), is com­mend­ing Gov­ern­ment for its most re­cent ac­tions to cur­tail the spread of COVID-19 in this coun­try—name­ly, the fur­ther re­stric­tion of move­ment of large swathes of the pop­u­la­tion deemed “non-es­sen­tial”.