Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley's Media Conference On COVID-19 - Friday July 31st 2020

Key Points From Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley’s Media Conference – Friday July 31st 2020: - Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley announced that gatherings in public spaces will be rolled back from 25 persons to 10. However, the numbers for funerals, religious gatherings, and S.E.A. classes, which are indoors, will not be affected by this change. Team sports can continue with spectators in groups of 10. Police will be called on to enforce the new Public Health Guideline on congregations, which should come into effect by Sunday August 2nd 2020. - Political parties engaged in campaigning must abide by the 10-person congregation rule. Political Leaders are urged to follow this guideline. - For the next 14 days, the Public Service will reduce the number of workers out at any one time through a rotation/alphabetised system. - Prime Minister Rowley noted that bars and schools remain two areas of concern for health officials. He confirmed that contact tracing has led to another school being closed today. Officials are carefully watching this situation at schools and will act if more learning institutions close in the coming days. - PM Rowley confirmed that health officials have found direct links of persons being infected with COVID-19 at bars. They are monitoring this situation and will act when necessary. - Officials are also keeping public transport under watch at this time and will intervene if necessary. - The Prime Minister is hopeful that these changes will slow down any other clusters that may form. - PM Rowley on repatriation of TT Nationals: We have granted exemptions from persons coming from 40 countries. These Nationals must stay in State quarantine for 14 days, which has helped in controlling the spread of COVID-19. - Chief Medical Officer Dr. Roshan Parasram confirmed a change in the evolution of COVID-19 cases in T&T. He said we are going into “clusters” of cases, when previously cases were classified as “sporadic.” - Technical Director, Epidemiology Division at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Avery Hinds, gave a breakdown of COVID cases from #139 to #169. - Among the 31 cases, seven were repatriated and classified as imported cases. They did not contribute to onward transmission to the public. - Over the past two weeks, there have been clusters forming. Dr. Hinds said there is a family cluster of six persons. There is no clear epidemiological link yet on this group. This cluster spawned two Secondary clusters – one in school and one in family/friends. - There is also another cluster of five persons. There is no clear epidemiological link yet. Among this cluster were at least three persons hanging out at a bar. These three then contributed to transmission of COVID-19. - Dr. Hinds said some cases happened in the workplace and on investigation, it was found that there was a lapse in following Public Health protocols. - There are four individuals that officials are still working to source a link, but they did not spread to anyone else. - There are 29 people being treated for COVID-19 in the public health system (28 at Caura and one at Couva). - Dr. Parasram stated that the Public Health facilities have seen an increase in persons coming in for viral diseases but not necessarily for COVID-19.