- A coro­n­avirus vac­cine de­vel­oped by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ox­ford stops 70% of peo­ple from de­vel­op­ing symp­toms, a large-scale tri­al shows

The Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (POA) has ex­pressed con­cern over the re­cent re­port of a spike in COVID-19 pos­i­tive cas­es in the prison sys­tem, and is call­ing on the Min­istry of Health to ramp up test­ing with­in prison walls.

Even as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day an­nounced there will be no state-spon­sored Christ­mas par­ties through­out the pub­lic sec­tor this year as they do not want peo­ple to con­gre­gate and in­crease COVID-19 fig­ures, the coun­try record­ed two ad­di­tion­al deaths.

The lat­est up­date from the Min­istry of Health is con­firm­ing 126 new pos­i­tive cas­es of COVID-19, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es in the coun­try to 725 pa­tients.

Po­lice have de­tained over 250 peo­ple as they swooped down on a "zess­er" par­ty in Ca­roni, this morn­ing.

At­tribut­ing this feat to ag­gres­sive plan­ning and prepa­ra­tions, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Health Sec­re­tary Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said while this meant there was no ac­tive COVID case cur­rent­ly on the is­land, it did not mean they were COVID free.

Pres­i­dent of the Bar Own­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (BOATT) Teron Mo­han has de­scribed as "a slap in the face" Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's an­nounce­ment on Sat­ur­day that $10 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed to as­sist bar and restau­rant em­ploy­ees af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The Min­istry of Health has as­sured that al­though the con­tracts of doc­tors and nurs­es hired to staff the COVID Sur­veil­lance Con­tact Trac­ing Team will ex­pire on Mon­day, they will be re­tained for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

Gov­ern­ment has now al­lo­cat­ed $30 mil­lion to bail out restau­rant and bar em­ploy­ees and peo­ple who are self-em­ployed.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is re­mind­ing cit­i­zens that any breach of a quar­an­tine or­der, car­ries a penal­ty of up to $50,000 in fines or six months’ im­pris­on­ment up­on con­vic­tion.

Hours af­ter Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis held a vir­tu­al meet­ing on Thurs­day evening with Glen Road res­i­dents about To­ba­go's jail re­cent­ly be­ing re­lo­cat­ed to their vil­lage, he sent a re­lease say­ing the un­oc­cu­pied fa­cil­i­ty has been closed.

It’s of­fi­cial.  Movi­eTowne Ch­agua­nas will be closed per­ma­nent­ly, leav­ing on­ly the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do branch­es.