Young: PM to be screened on return from Guyana

THE Prime Minister will be screened in keeping with established health protocols for covid19, when he returns home from Guyana.

National Security Minister Stuart Young made this statement at the post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann's on Thursday.

Dr Rowley left for Guyana on Wednesday. He was part of a Caricom leaders' delegation led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley which went to Guyana to meet with political parties there to resolve the impasse since the country's general and regional elections on March 2.

Young said he spoke with Rowley earlier in the day.

"At this stage, there is no level of concern. He will be screened when he comes back in this afternoon."

Due to the PM's gruelling travel schedule from London to Ghana, then back to London and TT within recent weeks, Young said Rowley would be taking "a couple days off."

Asked if that was a precaution, Young replied, "He (Rowley) wants to take a couple days off."

He also said the PNM has cancelled a walkabout and public meeting scheduled for this weekend, in keeping with covid19 precautions.

Young said although Guyana has recorded a death from covid19, that did not raise concerns for the PM's health.

"One case in a country doesn't immediately lead to the whole country is infected," he said.

Young said while there have been covid19 cases in the US, "There are a number of flights that come in from the US on a daily basis."

He said Rowley and his delegation were screened when they returned on Tuesday from Ghana and the UK.

Government has implemented a three-tier covid19 response plan. Tier One involves a returning national coming from a country identified as being at risk and who has symptoms. The response is home quarantine.

Tier Two deals with a returning national from a country not at risk who does not initially present symptoms and has limited exposure to the community. The response is to isolate the patient immediately, look at possible school closure and dissuade mass gatherings.

Tier Three involves covid19 escalating to a large group of people confirmed positive in different localities in TT. The response, in this case, is a possible state of emergency.

Guyana President David Granger announced Guyana's first imported case of covid19 on Wednesday. He said public gatherings and non-essential travel should be discouraged; competent agencies continue to patrol irregular border crossing, and sensitisation of key personnel at all air and seaports continue.

Granger also said screening remains in place for people arriving from high-risk countries. For Guyana, those countries are Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Brazil, French Guiana, Panama, St Vincent, US, China, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Iran.

Reports out of Guyana suggest there has been some panic buying of products such as hand sanitisers and Lysol products. One report said some large supermarkets in Guyana did not have any in stock.