With tears rolling down her cheeks, the daugh­ter of one of the pa­tients di­ag­nosed with the COVID-19 virus and ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal fell to her knees on the shoul­der of the high­way and prayed for her fa­ther to pull through on Sat­ur­day.

The woman, who did not give her name or that of her fa­ther, who is 66 years, said he was one of the first five of con­firmed cas­es. She said her fa­ther was still in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion but “with small im­prove­ments.”

The woman said she strong­ly be­lieved her fa­ther con­tract­ed the virus ei­ther while at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port or in Trinidad but not while he was on va­ca­tion abroad.

“Where he went, the peo­ple were in quar­an­tine and none of them have any signs of the flu, cold of any sort. Their quar­an­tine ac­tu­al­ly end­ed yes­ter­day (Fri­day), when he was proven pos­i­tive, they have been in quar­an­tine and they are now in the clear. It shows that he got it ei­ther from the air­port here or with­in Trinidad.”

The woman, who came in from Cana­da, said she trav­elled in­to Trinidad when she heard her fa­ther was ill. How­ev­er, she said she will have to leave Trinidad sad, as she is fly­ing out to­day (Sun­day), be­fore the to­tal shut­down of all in­ter­na­tion­al flights, be­cause she has to re­turn to her chil­dren in Cana­da.

“My fa­ther would have want­ed me to go back to my chil­dren,” she said.

Asked if all the per­sons who were in con­tact with her fa­ther were in quar­an­tine, the woman said yes.

“Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers who were in con­tact are self-quar­an­tined since the last day he spent with them. So far they are fine. Every­body who was in con­tact with him, we know they’re quar­an­tined be­cause the min­istry has been con­tact­ing them,” she said.

“We are in prayer and stand­ing to­geth­er. I don’t live here, I live abroad. I came when I heard he was ill not know­ing he was pos­i­tive.

“I did not go to my home so I have not seen my moth­er and broth­er yet. It is a try­ing time all around for us. We are just keep­ing each oth­er strong and keep­ing hope­ful that one day this will soon pass.”

Asked if she was sat­is­fied with how the au­thor­i­ties are deal­ing with the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion and her fa­ther’s care, she replied: “I am not sat­is­fied but I know it’s a te­dious sit­u­a­tion. But we can­not crit­i­cise any­body be­cause that is not my ex­per­tise. They are do­ing what they can do now.

“In my opin­ion, it should’ve been done be­fore Car­ni­val. Car­ni­val could have wait­ed. The day my fa­ther test­ed pos­i­tive was just 16 days af­ter Car­ni­val end­ed. That doesn’t mean he got it when he went abroad. Abroad is out of the pic­ture. Where he went has ze­ro cas­es to this date. I even spoke to peo­ple from that coun­try and there are still no cas­es there.”

She added, “We know for sure still that the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty is do­ing every­thing that they can to help and we are very pleased with the re­sponse we are get­ting from the doc­tors and al­so every­one else in the min­istry has been call­ing my oth­er fam­i­ly who is in quar­an­tine be­cause of con­tact with my dad. Dai­ly con­tact, so our sys­tem is work­ing for us and we just have to not lose hope and stick to­geth­er.”

The woman sent out a mes­sage to the peo­ple of T&T, say­ing, “Let’s all be­have as though we all have it.

“If we be­have that way and have that mind­set, we will keep to our­selves and erad­i­cate this ter­ror that is caus­ing so much de­spair. It is not on­ly caus­ing ill­ness, I heard of a sto­ry where a la­dy and her moth­er in quar­an­tine, apart from each oth­er and be­cause it has been over a week, the old la­dy has de­men­tia and she for­got her daugh­ter. Apart from ill­ness­es, it’s caus­ing oth­er forms of de­spair in every­one,” the woman said.

“Now is a time for us to come to­geth­er as a peo­ple. For­get race, pol­i­tics, every­thing and join to­geth­er to help mankind and the world. Pos­i­tive en­er­gy can do any­thing in what­ev­er form or fash­ion we live in.”