No more safe zones: Vaxxed, unvaxxed free to mix as covid19 restrictions lifted

The vaccinated and unvaccinated will once again be able to congregate as most health regulations will be removed from April 4.

Remaining are the need to wear masks in public spaces except when engaging in “physical sporting activity,” and the TT Travel Pass. However, from Sunday, the government will accept the results of antigen tests as PCR tests will no longer be required. Also, unvaccinated non-nationals are still not allowed into the country.

In an upbeat mood, the Prime Minister made these announcements on Saturday at a press conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.

Dr Rowley said on April 4, safe zones will be done away with, all restrictions on rivers and beaches will be removed, and there will be no capacity limit to public gatherings. This means people will once again be allowed to drink alcohol in public, there will be no limits on the amount of people in religious spaces, restaurants, gyms, casinos and cinemas, bars will be fully opened, and nightclubs, parties and boat rides will no longer be against the law.

He stressed that, with the government no longer intervening on people’s behalf, protection against covid19 was now an individual responsibility. As such people must not forget that the country was still in the midst of a pandemic.

He explained 708,000 people were fully vaccinated and about 300,000 people were exposed to covid19 and so gained natural immunity.

“TT is moving very quickly to a situation where the covid restrictions in totality will be removed...

“We are a different population today than the population that existed in March 2020. That is why we could take these... appreciations of not being restricted by the actions that we took to respond when we were a different population and when the viral variant was different and far more dangerous.”

He added that the virus was being continuously monitored and the government would respond to the threat responsibly at any given time. He said he could not tell the future so it was possible a new, more dangerous variant could occur and the above decisions could be reversed.

“If for any reason our country ends up like (countries) which have had to go back, what it would have meant is that the situation would have changed and the sensible response would have been to do differently to what we are doing today.”

Rowley said he also anticipated stopping the use of the Travel Pass soon. In the meantime, travellers to TT would be required to take either a PCR or antigen test 72 hours before arriving in TT.

“Just to ensure that if persons are determined by a test that you are sick, we can handle you a little differently because the danger of an infected person (with) omicron is not as severe as it was with delta as delta was raging.”

The drastic loosening of restrictions came after weeks of declining numbers of hospitalisations and deaths due to covid19 from around mid-January after weeks of record-breaking statistics in November and December.

He highlighted some of the situations TT had been in and measures taken over the past two years including high death rates, the closure of schools and churches, lockdowns, the possibility of mandatory vaccinations, then the reduction in the intensity of the virus and the subsequent reduction in hospital and death rates.

“We are in a much better place today than we were at Christmas last year. As Prime Minister of this country, I, like the doctors and nurses, spent many nights awake wondering what daybreak would bring and what the next day would bring. Because there were times during this pandemic where the mutation was such that human beings were not sure what our survival rate and ratio would have been.

“Given what we have done along the way, in that we had to preserve lives and livelihoods, we are now in a position to say that the preservation of life seems to be something we can take credit for and we need to do more on the side of the equation of preserving livelihoods.”

He thanked and congratulated the leadership of the health sector as well as the frontline health workers saying they rose to the occasion and came to the country’s rescue.

“Today, I can tell you in international journals where it is being written and where the boxes can be ticked as to where we were and what was required as a nation, you will find that Trinidad and Tobago has a high passing grade with respect to how we managed covid19 and continue so to do.”

With the planned reopening of school for all students in April, he thanked Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly who, he said, worked with stakeholders to “find possibilities” that some people could not see, and get children back out to school at the earliest opportunity despite difficulties.

He also praised those teachers who went “beyond the call of duty” to ensure students were prepared for their examinations which occurred on schedule.

“Once again we can look back and say we carefully and cautiously opened the doors, brought out the numbers, encouraged our children to be vaccinated. Many of them, about 60,000 were vaccinated and that allowed the unvaccinated ones also to have an opportunity. Because the more vaccinated persons you had, the easier it made life for the unvaccinated.

“It wasn’t that we were separating people. It was trying to reduce the effect that the virus could have had on the overall population.”

He reminded people that the threat of covid19 remained real and, with the rollback of health regulations, it was even more their individual responsibility to control themselves and not become infected.