Mem­bers of the Crown Point Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship As­so­ci­a­tion (CC­PA) say the Gov­ern­ment’s di­rec­tive to close bars un­til April 30 to pre­vent the spread of COVID- 19, has forced them to re­trench work­ers.

Cit­i­zens of this coun­ty who lose their jobs as a re­sult of the mea­sures be­ing put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 will be able to ac­cess a Salary Re­lief Grant of $1,500 a month for the next three months, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced yes­ter­day.

Of the 51 con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go, on­ly one pa­tient is in an In­ten­sive Care Unit while five are ward­ed at the High De­pen­den­cy Unit at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

As the Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my be­gins to feel the neg­a­tive ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic fall­out, the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to an­nounce ini­tia­tives to pro­vide a source of in­come to those who lose jobs dur­ing this time.

This coun­try’s 50th COVID-19 case, which was re­vealed yes­ter­day, is an­oth­er im­port­ed case -- the per­son had a re­cent his­to­ry of trav­el.

Pas­sen­gers both out­ward and in­ward-bound wel­comed spe­cial flights from Caribbean Air­lines yes­ter­day, say­ing these mea­sures have brought much-need­ed re­lief to them­selves and their fam­i­lies as coun­tries around the world con­tin­ue to shut their bor­ders to pre­vent those in­fect­ed with COVID-19 from en­ter­ing their re­spec­tive coun­tries.

With the Unit­ed States econ­o­my al­ready in re­ces­sion and the COVID-19 death toll rapid­ly ris­ing there, T&T na­tion­als who live in that coun­try have been do­ing their best to cope with the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion there.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic who are tra­di­tion­al­ly ac­cus­tomed to vis­it­ing pro­duce mar­kets every week­end are now be­ing asked to stag­ger their ar­rival times to these fa­cil­i­ties in an at­tempt to min­imise the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The re­main­ing pas­sen­gers from the ill-fat­ed Caribbean cruise still quar­an­tined at the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Camp, Camp Ba­lan­dra, are said to be hap­py and re­laxed.

The Cou­va Hos­pi­tal is now on to­tal lock­down af­ter re­ceiv­ing 40 new pa­tients who have test­ed pos­i­tive for the nov­el Coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty says Trinidad and To­ba­go bor­ders will be closed to all, in­clud­ing na­tion­als of this coun­try, from mid­night Sun­day.

The coun­try’s COVID-19 num­bers soared from nine to 49 overnight Fri­day and the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram is ex­pect­ing that num­ber to rise. The 40 new cas­es all came from the 68 cruise ship pas­sen­gers who were quar­an­tined at Camp Ba­lan­dra in To­co af­ter re­turn­ing home on Wednes­day.