TT quarantine protocols have always been secure: MP Seecheran

Port of Spain: Minister of Health, Terrence Deyalsingh’s declaration that our country’s protocol for returning nationals worked and worked brilliantly, is an admission of the lack of empathy and the non-adherence to the science that the Rowley Administration imposed on nationals locked out of Trinidad and Tobago for over a year," said Dr Rishad Seecheran - Member of Parliament, Caroni East. Yesterday Trinidad and Tobago confirmed its first two cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant of concern. These two cases were detected in two recently returned nationals who travelled from the US and Guyana. As per the protocols for unvaccinated adults, the Ministry of Health, placed these nationals into state-supervised quarantine.

The Quarantine Protocols for Returning Nationals have worked and would have worked for the Gamma Variant and all other Variants of Concern. It has been and will continue to be a safe and secure procedure, followed by the majority of countries around the world, in allowing their citizens to return to their homeland.

"Why could this not have been done over one year ago? Why did we have to lock our nationals out of their country? The Delta Variant that is currently present in our borders presents no threat, nor danger to the general public. These infected persons will be medically treated, and the virus will be allowed to run its course without being transmitted to another individual," MP added.

He said that the major reason why people in Trinidad and Tobago have not been seeded with the Delta Variant is due to the fact that Venezuelan migrants currently do not see our country as a viable port of entry, due to the second wave of Covid-19 infections that occurred in the aftermath of the Easter Weekend. "Post-Easter Weekend Health Restrictions, State of Emergency and nightly curfews resulted in many of these Venezuelan migrants being unable to work and provide for their families. Many became destitute and have returned to their homeland. Without these migrants targeting the coasts of Trinidad, we have up to now been spared the transmission of the Delta Variant from the South American mainland. This was not the case with the Gamma Variant."

Dr Seecheran said that there was no logical reason in science to have locked out nationals, as they could have been repatriated safety and without any danger to the population.