DON’T BLAME CARNIVAL

CHIEF Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Roshan Parasram sought to lay to rest incessant claims, over social media, that government’s decision to allow the staging of Carnival, in which 30,000 people visited TT back in February, was responsible for the 90-plus covid19 infections in the country.

Speaking on Friday at the Health Ministry’s daily virtual press conference, Dr Parasram said, “if we had transmission of this virus during the Carnival season we would have had tens of thousands of cases of coronavirus in Trinidad and Tobago to date. Prior to our first case on March 12, I don’t think there were any cases in TT.”

Up to 5.30 pm on Friday, there were 98 cases of the virus and six deaths with one person being declared covid19 free and thus, discharged from hospital.

During the lead up to Carnival on February 24 and 25, many people criticized the Government for not “shutting down” the annual two-day celebration, saying the influx of foreigners would have easily brought in the covid19 virus to TT. Parasram on Friday said there was no such risk at the time of the Carnival.

“Our testing would have started appropriately by CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency) in a time prior to getting any importation of cases. We would have put restrictions (of travel) on China on January 30 and China was the main country that would have spread at that time,” Parasram said.

The Government also imposed travel restrictions on Italy, South Korea, Iran, Japan and Singapore on February 26. Nationals and non-nationals returning from these countries were subjected to quarantine for a minimum of 14 days. Dr Parasram said that decision was made based on the Health Ministry’s “global look to see where the disease was spreading to.”

He said during the Carnival season, groups of people contacted the ministry saying they were in contact with people from the US, Canada and the UK and wished to be tested.

“At the time of Carnival there were very, very very few cases in those countries. There were less than 50 cases in all those territories before Carnival. It was low as ten in the US, which is ten out of 300 million.” He said though some of those people complained of having flu-like symptoms, they all tested negative.

“I don’t think prior to getting our first case on March 12, there would have been any cases in TT.” He added that in addition to the 46 positive cases from a group of 68 nationals who returned from a cruise ship, many of the newer cases are from the 19,500 nationals who returned home between March 16 and before TT’s borders were closed on midnight on Sunday March 22.

There are now over one million globally confirmed cases of the virus. The ministry continues to urge the public to stay at home to help flatten the curve.