The Bar Keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (BOATT) wants Dr Maryam Ab­dool-Richards—Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer / In­sti­tu­tions at the Min­istry of Health—to pro­vide sci­en­tif­ic da­ta which shows that the con­sump­tion of al­co­hol would lead per­sons to re­duce their an­ti-COVID mea­sures, name­ly face-mask wear­ing and so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter, BOATT ex­press­es con­cern over re­cent state­ments made by Dr Ab­dool-Richards in that re­gard.

“At the vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence on Mon­day 9th No­vem­ber 2020, Dr Ab­dool-Richards stat­ed: ‘As re­gards, the de­ci­sion for re­strict­ing al­co­hol at restau­rants and the clo­sure of bars, this is a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion that was tak­en by a group of per­sons based on the sci­ence and ev­i­dence on the im­pact of al­co­hol. In sum­ma­ry, we be­lieve that al­co­hol, from a be­hav­iour­al pat­tern, caus­es a dis­in­hi­bi­tion of be­hav­iour and thus re­sults in per­sons re­duc­ing their an­ti-COVID mea­sures, in terms of face mask wear­ing and prox­im­i­ty, thus in­creas­ing their risk of COVID-19 trans­mis­sion’, the BOATT state­ment quotes Dr Ab­dool-Richards.

In re­sponse, BOATT ar­gues:

“Based on this state­ment, one can con­gre­gate any and every­where in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing streets and side­walks, con­sume al­co­hol, but on­ly when you en­ter a Restau­rant or Bar, al­co­hol caus­es a dis­in­hi­bi­tion of be­hav­iour and that there is sci­en­tif­ic da­ta and ev­i­dence to sup­port this.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion main­tains such a po­si­tion is counter to what is hap­pen­ing in oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, where stud­ies show no such cor­re­la­tion.

“Da­ta com­ing out of the Unit­ed King­dom, which has one of the high­est COVID-19 case­loads in the world, shows that restau­rants and bars on­ly ac­count for 4% of COVID-19 re­lat­ed cas­es, with the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es com­ing from work­place and ed­u­ca­tion­al set­tings,” BOATT says.

It adds: “In coun­tries all over the world—in­clud­ing our CARI­COM neigh­bour Bar­ba­dos—both bars and restau­rants are open and op­er­at­ing un­der COVID guide­lines and pro­to­cols with lit­tle to no COVID cas­es.”

BOATT says it is con­cerned since the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sions on re­lax­ing re­stric­tions are be­ing in­flu­enced by in­puts from se­nior health of­fi­cials, like Dr Ab­dool-Richards.

“The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is call­ing on Dr. Ab­dool-Richards to kind­ly pro­vide the gen­er­al pub­lic with the de­tails of this sci­en­tif­ic da­ta and ev­i­dence, as such in­for­ma­tion has in­flu­enced the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion that af­fects the liveli­hood of over 100,000 em­ploy­ees that are em­ployed in food and bev­er­age sec­tor, all of whom have suf­fered tremen­dous­ly over the past 8 months,” the As­so­ci­a­tion states.