PoS stays at home

When it is a holiday in TT, Port of Spain is usually quiet but on Monday, the Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day, it was particularly quiet as many people stayed at home to help the fight against covid19.

It was the first day of the stay at home rules which began at midnight on Sunday.

A walk through Port of Spain saw only the essential businesses, like supermarkets and pharmacies opened. Even in these businesses there were few people inside.

Some people did some light shopping while the police made their presence felt by frequent patrols, both on foot and in vehicles.

City policemen at the corner of Duke and Charlotte said people were adhering to the rules and were staying at home. They said that many of the people seen came to the supermarkets and left quickly.

Sheldon Timothy president of the Maraval Taxi Drivers association and trustee Junior Ross told Newsday it has been slow for drivers but they were going with the flow and going with two passengers.

They said they would not increase fares as they would make it through.

Other taxi drivers, like some on the Curepe and Arima taxi stands, said they were interested in finding out if they could assess some of the covid19 social assistance since their income had been affected by covid19. Junior Guevara, a taxi driver of 15 years, said he was interested in knowing since some drivers have children and families to take care of.

Miguel Dolabaille, the president of the Chaguanas Taxi Drivers association, said as it was a holiday it would be difficult to say how taxi drivers were being affected by the stay at home rules.

However, he said it would be difficult and the drivers wished the Government had given some sort of a further gas subsidy as it would make it less difficult during the stay at home period.

He said Tuesday would be the true test to see how stay at home rules were affecting people like taxi drivers.