In true Trin­bag­on­ian style, the im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the lat­est COVID-19 re­stric­tions was not a sober ac­knowl­edge­ment of the dire sit­u­a­tion fac­ing the coun­try but a rush to get a ‘las lap’ run at the lo­ca­tions that closed at mid­night.

This was not pan­ic buy­ing in the tra­di­tion­al sense but a rush to horde in­dul­gences, par­tic­u­lar­ly of the fast-food va­ri­ety, that will not be avail­able for the next three weeks.

It was by no means the type of es­sen­tial prepa­ra­tions need­ed when, to re­verse the soar­ing COVID-19 cas­es, so­cial and com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties have been cur­tailed.

Restau­rants, gyms, church­es and oth­er spaces where peo­ple con­gre­gate have been tem­porar­i­ly shut­tered and all but es­sen­tial pub­lic sec­tor work has been halt­ed in a sce­nario rem­i­nis­cent of the ear­ly days of the pan­dem­ic in T&T.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, just re­cov­ered from his bout with the coro­n­avirus, an­nounced the new reg­u­la­tions from To­ba­go, where he had spent the last three weeks in iso­la­tion.

But his mes­sage about the ur­gent need to stop the spread of COVID-19 seemed to have been lost on many of those who rushed out to malls and restau­rants, opt­ing to spend hours in queues - al­beit phys­i­cal­ly dis­tanced- for very un­nec­es­sary items.

Nev­er mind that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the newest re­stric­tions came against the back­drop of T&T record­ing its high­est num­ber of new COVID-19 cas­es - 328, plus two more deaths.

Just a few days ago, at a Min­istry of Health brief­ing, pub­lic health of­fi­cials linked a spike in cas­es last year to a las lap at beach­es across the coun­try just be­fore they were closed to the pub­lic.

This time, how­ev­er, the con­se­quences of pan­dem­ic breach­es will be much more se­vere. Al­though a small frac­tion of the pop­u­la­tion has been ad­min­is­tered a first dose of the As­traZeneca vac­cine, most cit­i­zens are still with­out even that lev­el of pro­tec­tion.

To make mat­ters worse, the lat­est es­ca­la­tion in cas­es is oc­cur­ring just as the high­ly in­fec­tious Brazil vari­ant has been de­tect­ed in some parts of the coun­try.

It all boils down to one un­avoid­able truth, that we have on­ly our­selves to blame when COVID-19 gets out of con­trol.

Just a few weeks ago, the num­ber of ac­tive pos­i­tive case was head­ing be­low 100. But one long East­er week­end of su­per spread­er be­hav­iour has once again set the coun­try on the road to a pub­lic health cri­sis. As of yes­ter­day, there were 1,913 ac­tive COVID-19 cas­es and that num­ber is in­creas­ing at a fright­en­ing rate.

Since the start of the pan­dem­ic in March 2020, 19,498 peo­ple have con­tract­ed COVID-19 and 165 of them have died.

There is an­oth­er dan­ger­ous ef­fect of the coro­n­avirus. Yes­ter­day’s shut­ting down of sev­er­al sec­tors once again sti­fles eco­nom­ic and so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties to a de­gree that can­not be sus­tained over the long term.

The warn­ings must be heed­ed. Gath­er­ings of any kind above the stip­u­lat­ed num­bers could be the na­tion’s down­fall. The limes and the las laps that are so deeply em­bed­ded in our cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty can be dan­ger­ous ac­tiv­i­ties in this time of COVID-19.