Hinds tells UNC: United front to fight covid19 exists

NATIONAL Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds has told the Opposition UNC that a united front already exists in Trinidad and Tobago to combat the covid19 pandemic.

Hinds made this comment in post on his Facebook page, responding to a call by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar at a recent UNC virtual meeting for Government to form a united front with the UNC and other stakeholders against covid19

"Actually, there is already a united front!"

But Hinds added that Persad-Bissessar and the UNC "are on the outside" of this group.

"We do not; and can never trust your poisoned tongue, and the outpourings of your convoluted and deceptive mind."

Hinds asked Persad-Bissessar, "You now know that covid19 is a war? After you talk all that rubbish for the past year and obstructed as best you could? After you wanted to fight covid in the rum shops? With punchin (sic), sunlight and your dome?"

He said UNC members, including two UNC MPs, "went to court four times to strike down the public health regulations, which we put in place to protect the people."

Hinds admitted that some citizens have not taken the pandemic seriously enough, "playing careless and taking deadly covid risks." He wondered whether their actions were guided by advice from Persad-Bissessar.

Hinds claimed Persad-Bissessar and other UNC members discouraged people from taking covid19 vaccines, but "slyly and quietly went and had yours."

On Sunday, UNC Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal, challenged the Prime Minister to take the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. Moonilal, who took his first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 24 at the Marabella Health Centre, questioned the efficacy of Sinopharm.

In response, Dr Rowley said Moonilal "had chronicled all the negatives that he could find on the Chinese vaccine." Rowley added, "Apparently he could not find the hundreds of similar issues raised on AstraZeneca and the other vaccines. That is what happens when you are intellectually dishonest."

Rowley was scheduled to receive his first dose on April 6, when the first tranche of 33,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in TT. But he was diagnosed with covid19 on that day and went into quarantine at the Prime Minister's official residence in Blenheim, Tobago, for a mandatory period of two weeks. Rowley was diagnosed covid19-negative on April 26 and subsequently came out of quarantine.

He said, "The WHO (World Health Organization) guideline is that if one was positive for covid then one should allow a period of six months to pass before being vaccinated. That was stated when I came out of isolation at the end of April. It was stated then that I could be vaccinated in October."