Retail stores to reopen August 16, NLCB booths August 9

THERE is good news for the retail sector, as Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh announced all stores will reopen on August 16.

At the ministry’s health media conference on Saturday morning, he said, “All retail will be reopened from August 16. We ask all retail operators and owners to use this time, to use this week to get more and more of your employees vaccinated.

“We are asking the public who want to go into retail stores – because we are cognisant that school is going to open soon, you want to go to clothes stores or a jewellery store — as customers, you have a duty to get vaccinated.”

Deyalsingh urged retail store owners and mall owners to encourage their employees to get vaccinated, as lower-ranking staff pose a threat by not being vaccinated.

He said the vaccination rate was between 20 and 50 per cent and did not match the rate of staff at other levels, such as executive, management or administration.

“There is a disturbing trend of vaccination patterns across many countries in retail and in business. Almost 90-100 per cent of the managerial staff, supervisory staff, tends to be vaccinated. We do not have to encourage the white-collar staff to be vaccinated.

“Where things get dangerous is at the shop-floor level, the blue-collar level: this is where the sales clerks are interacting with the population. Vaccination rates at those levels tend to drop off precipitously.”

Deyalsingh also announced that National Lotteries Control Board operations will restart from August 9, and urged operators to maintain the health protocols

“From August 9, NLCB will be opened for business, whether it is to play your Play Whe, Scratch, Pick Four, pay your bills and all that.

“But we ask operators and owners of these booths to ensure that masking is there, and social distancing is observed. Please do not allow patrons to congregate around the windows of your booths and cause problems. Let us take this opening as a good sign in the confidence that we have in you and each other that we can do the right thing.”

Deyalsingh said the additional reopenings were in keeping with expected increase in vaccinations among the public, Trinidad and Tobago having received a donation of almost 84,000 AstraZeneca doses from Canada.

“These announcements are in the context that we expect the population to take advantage of being vaccinated, because as we bring out more and more people, the risks to society and the risk to your health becomes even more dangerous.”

Earlier this week the Retail Association lobbied for a reopening of the sector, citing that nearly 78,000 workers were jobless and business owners were on the brink of closure.