Covid19 hits Catholic churches, Archbishop says services will go on

Covid19 protocols at Roman Catholic parishes are already strict so Archbishop Jason Gordon is not considering stopping in-person services or rolling back on restrictions for the church.

In a previous statement containing guidelines for the upcoming Easter weekend, he said all churches would be open but encouraged people not to flout the covid19 protocols. He noted the upsurge in the daily numbers and called for even stricter protocols during this Easter week, urging members of the clergy to “do their part” to ensure that everyone strictly adhered to the guidelines.

This as two Catholic churches recently closed its doors as members were found to be covid19 positive.

On Good Friday, Gordon told Newsday, “At this moment we’re leaving things as is. We have a lot of protocols in place in our parishes. We have temperature checks, we have contact tracing, and we have everybody’s address. The government allows us to have 50 per cent of our usual capacity but we’re running between 30 and 40 per cent so we’re distancing even more than what the government has asked us to do.”

He added that the church had a health, safety, and environment team, complete with medical doctors, who wrote protocols and conducted checks to ensure the protocols were observed. This included closing two churches whose members had covid19, although they did not contract the virus at the churches.

In the case of St Francis RC Church in Belmont he said, “A family had covid19 and because they had been in church on the last weekend, we didn’t want to risk any spread by somebody who may be asymptomatic.

“They did not interact with a lot of people but out of an abundance of caution we closed. We have two places (Belmont and Penal) where we have done that. So I would say we have really been very disciplined and have put in even stricter protocols than the Ministry of Health has asked us to put in.”

He said he would wait to see how the daily case numbers progressed before making any adjustment to the current regulations.

According to a Facebook post on the St Francis Church page on Thursday, two parishioners had covid19, which caused the church to close until further notice. It said there would be no Holy Week ceremonies, public masses or church activities at the church, and the parish office was officially closed.

Fr Robert Christo, vicar of communications, told Newsday the church has already been deep cleaned and sanitised, and the church was monitoring the situation along with the Ministry of Health.

One of the positive parishioners was an active member of the community while the other had not been to church for a while. They were both in quarantine. Parish priest Fr Thomas Lawson OP, who got tested, does not have the virus.

Christo added that, about two weeks ago his parish, St Dominic’s RC Church in Penal, closed due to a covid19 case.

He said a covid19 positive man attended mas with a small group of other parishioners and since then the church had been sanitised. Christo was not present at the mass.

The primary and secondary contacts of the man will officially be out of quarantine on Sunday. But, because of this, the St Patrick’s as well as the St Dominic’s covid19 units changed the Easter schedule. The Good Friday and Holy Tuesday masses will be held virtually, while the Glorious Saturday and Easter Sunday masses would be held at the church following covid19 protocols as well as streamed online.

High numbers have been the trend over the past few days as the Ministry of Health reported 44 cases in Friday's 4 pm update. On Thursday, TT recorded 46 cases and three deaths, and 22 cases on Wednesday. In all, 112 cases were recorded in the past three days. TT's total is now 8,116 and active cases are 347. Deaths remain at 145.

On March 27, during a news conference on Saturday at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, the Prime Minister appealed to people to take personal responsibility over the Easter period to avoid a spike in covid19 cases as, just that week, one update reported 38 new cases. He did so again on Thursday

And, on Wednesday, Deyalsingh cautioned the public not to relax on covid19 public health regulations just because a small batch of 33,600 covid19 vaccines arrived in the country the day before.

The next day, Deyalsingh announced the roll back of restrictions on recreational team sports as of Good Friday.

On February 20, Minister of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe said people could engage in outdoor, recreational sporting activities involving 22 people or less from February 22. This has now been discontinued.

On Thursday, Deyalsingh said, “What we have noticed is that it is more than 22 people. The after-game lime is becoming dangerous, where food and drinks start to come out and people are congregating without mask-wearing. We are going back to how we were. So there will be, for the time being, (no recreational team sports) until further advised.

“This measure will not affect the training of national and international teams preparing for their international commitments, whether it’s World Cup or Olympics.”