Al­though the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has put mea­sures in place for na­tion­als un­der COVID-19 quar­an­tine to vote as spe­cial elec­tors in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram says on­ly those cur­rent­ly quar­an­tined will be able to do so.

Some 19,000 Stan­dard Five pupils get­ting ready to sit the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion on Au­gust 20 yes­ter­day re­turned to class­es for the first since COVID-19 forced a shut­down of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. De­spite this, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) plans to raise con­cerns over the de­lay in de­liv­ery of sani­ti­sa­tion sup­plies to some schools with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to­day.At 4 pm yes­ter­day, TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia De Fre­itas was still col­lect­ing feed­back from some re­gions.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is not very con­fi­dent about Gov­ern­ment’s abil­i­ty to re­vi­talise the coun­try’s econ­o­my if the cur­rent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to ex­ert pres­sure on the econ­o­my.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is propos­ing a wage sub­sidy as a means to re­in­force the work­force that has been af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go med­ical stu­dents who were repa­tri­at­ed from Cu­ba on Ju­ly 6 will be re­unit­ed with their re­spec­tive fam­i­ly mem­bers to­day as the sec­ond tests for COVID-19 came up neg­a­tive.

The state has been hit with 16 law­suits re­lat­ed to COVID-19 since the bor­ders were closed in March in an ef­fort to curb the spread of the virus. This was re­vealed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi when asked whether the de­ci­sion to re­vert to a 10 pm clos­ing time for bars had any­thing to with the law­suit filed by more than 300 bar own­ers and op­er­a­tions and the Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT).

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Joanne Paul, Head of the Pae­di­atric De­part­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, this is the age group where per­sons are out lim­ing and so­cials­ing in close prox­im­i­ty in bars and oth­er events where the virus can be quick­ly and eas­i­ly spread.

Three weeks af­ter bars had their clos­ing hours rolled back from 10 pm to 8 pm due to pa­trons fail­ing to ad­here to the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions, the Min­istry of Health has agreed to re­lax its open­ing hours, tak­ing it back to 10 pm. Bars will now be open from 8 am to 10 pm.

The three pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es that were record­ed in T&T na­tion­als who re­turned from Grena­da on Fri­day, has been de­scribed by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties as a wor­ry­ing de­vel­op­ment.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties whose can­di­dates are en­gag­ing in elec­tion cam­paign­ing that leads to more than 25 peo­ple con­gre­gat­ing in the same space and flout­ing Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions may end up hav­ing to an­swer to the TTPS.

De­lores Robin­son’s days are usu­al­ly busy. She heads GROOTS Trinidad and To­ba­go, a civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­vides psy­choso­cial care for peo­ple liv­ing with HIV and man­ages a tran­si­tion house.

There are three more pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This has been con­firmed by the Min­istry of Health, in its lat­est COVID-19 up­date.