When the an­nounce­ment came two weeks ago that pop­u­lar cruise line Roy­al Caribbean in­tend­ed to rein­tro­duce T&T as one of the ports of calls on its 2021/2022 sched­ule, re­spons­es were mixed. Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell em­braced the move stat­ing that we would have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case our cul­ture as a unique one, but oth­ers, like Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce Mar­tin George, were scep­ti­cal in this tense sea­son of COVID-19 and its vari­ants.

The COVID-19 health pan­dem­ic has brought fi­nan­cial, health and emo­tion­al dis­tress to many in T&T and around the world.

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) is urg­ing coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as to in­ten­si­fy their sur­veil­lance, out­break in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and con­tact trac­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, fol­low­ing con­fir­ma­tion that three new vari­ants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—which are rais­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble height­ened spread and sever­i­ty of COVID-19—have been de­tect­ed in 14 coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as.

The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) is urg­ing coun­tries in the re­gion to ac­ti­vate en­hanced vig­i­lance in re­sponse to the news that the COVID-19 UK vari­ant has been found in the Caribbean.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), An­to­nia De Fre­itas, is strong­ly ad­vis­ing par­ents to in­stil in their chil­dren the im­por­tance of ob­serv­ing all the COVID-19 health pro­to­cols—in­clud­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing—when schools are re­opened on a phased ba­sis in Feb­ru­ary.

At least 75 peo­ple were mo­men­tar­i­ly de­tained by po­lice of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) and of­fi­cers of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, af­ter of­fi­cers swooped down on the pop­u­lar Res­i­dence night­club in One Wood­brook place just be­fore mid­night on Sun­day.

The lat­est up­date from the Min­istry of Health is con­firm­ing 11 new pos­i­tive cas­es of COVID-19, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es in the coun­try to 324 pa­tients.

The world’s com­mem­o­ra­tion of the third In­ter­na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Day oc­curs in the wake of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that led to a glob­al learn­ing dis­rup­tion of un­prece­dent­ed scale and sever­i­ty.

There would be no new re­stric­tions or pro­to­cols im­ple­ment­ed by the gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of an im­port­ed case of COVID-19 in­fect­ed with the UK vari­ant.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley says he is "wor­ried" that the first case of the more con­ta­gious UK COVID-19 vari­ant is in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) has re­it­er­at­ed its call for Trinidad and To­ba­go to cap­i­talise on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to host Car­ni­val events in 2021, notwith­stand­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) is giv­ing as­sur­ances that it is pro­vid­ing the full suite of med­ical ser­vices at its fa­cil­i­ties—es­pe­cial­ly The­atre Ser­vices, Out­pa­tients Clin­ics (OPC) and triage as­sess­ments at Emer­gency De­part­ments—de­spite the con­straints of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.