Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says they have re­spond­ed to the call by na­tion­als stuck out­side of T&T to re­turn home by in­creas­ing repa­tri­a­tion flights and en­sur­ing state quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties are ready for them.

Speak­ing dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s me­dia brief­ing host­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in To­ba­go as he an­nounced an eas­ing of re­stric­tions, Young dis­closed that 5,905 ex­emp­tions had been grant­ed to peo­ple to re­turn to T&T to date, while 8,046 ex­emp­tions had been grant­ed to peo­ple to leave T&T.

He said, “Ex­emp­tions grant­ed to en­ter T&T from Au­gust 31 to Oc­to­ber 22 is 2,573. The ex­emp­tions to de­part T&T from Au­gust 31 to Oc­to­ber 22 is 1,815.”

Young added that out of the 5,905 ex­emp­tions grant­ed to peo­ple want­i­ng to re­turn to T&T, they had re­ceived 1,395 re­quests from peo­ple in the US; 258 from the UK; and 177 from Cana­da.

He said they were now look­ing at peo­ple in In­dia, Japan, etc and per­mit­ting them to come home. “We are now at the stage where every week, with­in a ten-day pe­ri­od we have two flights, one from Mi­a­mi and one from New York. We al­so on a week­ly ba­sis have a flight, these are all Caribbean Air­lines flights from Bar­ba­dos com­ing in, and what we are look­ing at are some of the oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions.”

He said ad­di­tion­al CAL flights had been in­clud­ed on the ros­ter, as he thanked the Min­istry of Health for the green light to bring home more na­tion­als.

Young com­mend­ed law en­force­ment agen­cies for en­forc­ing the law and as the coun­try moves in­to yet an­oth­er phase of the re­open­ing process, he ap­pealed to peo­ple to do the right thing and not gath­er in groups of more than ten.