PM: We’ll discontinue SoE early once safe to do so

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Even if another 90-day State of Emergency (SoE ) was approved, Government intends to discontinue the SoE at the first and earliest opportunity once it won’t increase COVID-19 risk and it’s medically safe and reasonable to end it.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley gave that assurance in the House of Representatives yesterday while piloting a motion to extend the SoE to November 30. It required only Government votes for passage and was eventually passed with a vote of 21 for on the Government’s side, none against and 18 abstentions from the Opposition side.

Rowley, who defended Government’s pandemic handling and institution of the SoE, said the only reason for the extension is to prevent further virus spread, between a period of the curfew “to be determined,” people will be encouraged not to congregate and socialise at night.

“At the end of the day, we want to be able to preserve lives and keep hospitals from overflowing, keep doctors and nurses from being overworked and keep people at the jobs they’ve been allowed to return to.

“I want to give this assurance that at the first opportunity that is medically safe and encouraged, this Government will discontinue this SoE, even if Parliament approves this SoE for 90 days, where it’s reasonable to do so without exposing the population, we’ll end it right then and there,” Rowley said.

He said technical experts’ advice is that T&T is at a dangerous place and by slackness, misinformation or misbehaviour, could end up with a sudden case increase, as happened in May, that could lead to “… having to do what we did before. But the last thing we want is to lockdown again to save lives.”

Rowley spoke against a background of horn-tooting by motorists who were protesting the extension as they passed the Red House. A group of people also protested on the pavement outside the building. Protest noises could be heard inside the Parliament chamber.

The protests were in response to UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s call for people to air their opposition to the extension with horn tooting and headlight flashing. Apart from outside of Parliament, protests occurred in Fyzabad; Avocat; certain Curepe locations; Munroe Road, Chaguanas; Penal and parts of San Fernando.

Rowley, in debate, recounted the daily COVID case increases since April. Projections then were that if the public continued normal interaction, T&T would have had a major crisis. Consequently, the SoE was instituted with a 9 pm to 5 am curfew to prevent spread by suppressing socialising that occurs over that time.

He said projections were correct. Cases accompanied by deaths reached highest point “and could have gone a lot higher. If we didn’t intervene to discourage socialising, it most certainly would have gone much worse.”

Rowley said T&T came very close to having hospitals overwhelmed but avoided that as with the SoE, infections reduced over June-July. But he said numbers seen today aren’t the total story, since that had to be considered with how many people got infected from one case – and that showed up over 14 days.

Despite a plateauing of cases, T&T hasn’t returned to pre-SoE levels, he said, adding he’d been looking forward to the SoE’s end, especially to give police, nurses and doctors a rest. But he said when Government looked at where T&T is after the 90 days, it’s not at a point to dispense with the SoE.

“If we do that, it’s more likely the responses from the public will see us having higher community spread, leading to another phase of activity which will force Government to take firmer action,” he said.

To protect against this, he said T&T may need to pay the price and give up nighttime socialisation “… it’s the only reason we’re seeking extension.”

“I’m not in possession of any data, none whatsoever, that’s not been made public by the medical experts that put information into the public domain to guide us through this very troublesome process.”

He said the current plateau doesn’t encourage ending the SoE.

While some sectors were returned, he said if T&T didn’t maintain its work, it can end up with runaway infection as in May, “then we’d be starting from a much higher infection level and will more quickly reach the stage we had in June and go higher.”

“We have to be very careful that things that help virus spread – doesn’t have its way. So we’re asking an extension to encourage people through force of law not to congregate at night and preserve this plateau – better still, reduce it to lower levels. If we control ourselves a little longer, we’ll strengthen our position,” he said, noting the potential for the Delta variant.

So far, he said systems allowed Government to identify it, catching it on the border.

“Had we not taken experts’ advice, we’d be in that variant’s hands.”

“Based on where we are, came from and could go, if we could reduce for a while longer our nocturnal activities … what’s intended is a restriction of this at night, even among families – we want to encourage that a little more.”

Urging the public to accept that there’s inconvenience, he added, “We now call on you to give up the socialisation at night for a good reason.”