Rhon­dor Dowlat

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' for­mer MP and Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to lift all COVID-19 emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tions.

This fol­lows the move by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion to no longer clas­si­fy the Coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic as a ‘glob­al pub­lic health emer­gency of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern’ of tremen­dous glob­al, re­gion­al and lo­cal sig­nif­i­cance. It means that, af­ter three years af­ter the Covid-19 virus un­leashed an un­prece­dent­ed med­ical and eco­nom­ic cri­sis of glob­al pro­por­tions, the world can now look for­ward to some re­turn to pre-pan­dem­ic norms.

Dr Gopeesingh, in a re­lease, said that in the wake of this sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment, he ad­vis­es the Gov­ern­ment and Min­istry of Health to im­me­di­ate­ly lift the ex­ist­ing emer­gency pub­lic health de­c­la­ra­tion that has been in place in Trinidad and To­ba­go since 2020.

"This, in spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence, but not lim­it­ed to, the Pub­lic Health Nov­el Coro­n­avirus Reg­u­la­tions 2022, which man­dates the wear­ing of face­masks in all health in­sti­tu­tions, pri­vate and pub­lic, as well as where gen­er­al places of busi­ness­es may deem nec­es­sary," Dr Gopeesingh said.

Ac­cord­ing to Le­gal No­tice No. 189, 19 Sep­tem­ber 2022, a per­son can be fined a sum of $5000, or face three days in jail, for fail­ure to wear a face mask in the spec­i­fied ar­eas.

"This is now un­nec­es­sary, and even harsh, giv­en the WHO’s lat­est de­c­la­ra­tion. No­tably, the Unit­ed States is set to sim­i­lar­ly lift its own na­tion­al emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tion (re Covid-19) on May 11, 2023," Dr Gopeesingh ex­plained.

On Fri­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh told the Guardian Me­dia that T&T has long been on that tran­si­tion­al path and as such, he said no changes to the ap­proach could be ex­pect­ed in the near fu­ture.