Kamla claims covid19 testing sham

The Opposition Leader is alleging that Government is misleading the public about testing people for covid19, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has fallen down on the job and Government is wasting taxpayers’ dollars.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar claimed Government has no plan of action to deal with the covid19 pandemic despite saying it was prepared to do so since January.

She said the low covid19 positive numbers do not reflect the need for Government’s “drastic, prolonged national shutdown” to combat the pandemic. Persad-Bissessar alleged Government “must therefore be fully aware of the true state of the coronavirus spread across the country.” She said the obvious conclusion was the State’s covid19 testing apparatus, equipment and capacity “continue to be woefully lacking and now dangerously inadequate.”

Questioning figures being issued by the Health Ministry, Persad-Bissessar said 10,000 covid19 tests should have been done by now. Persad-Bissessar called on Deyalsingh and Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram to say how many actual unique people were tested by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA); how many deaths with flu-like symptoms that were never tested for covid19 have been recorded as suspected cases; what is the total number of deaths in the population from January compared to the total number of deaths for the same period from January to April 2019; how many deaths were recorded of people who exhibited flu-like symptoms but were refused covid19 tests and how did health authorities know covid19 was not in TT before March, when there was no testing taking place.

She claimed Government was using its reporting on the covid19 pandemic to mislead and distract the population. Persad-Bissessar alleged one distraction was Government withdrawing over $20 billion from the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund.

She also said the food cards and salary relief grants being offered by Government to those affected by the pandemic “are considerably insufficient to meet the needs of citizens.