CAMILLE McEACH­NIE

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley says he is "wor­ried" that the first case of the more con­ta­gious UK COVID-19 vari­ant is in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to re­porters on the new dis­ease strain, af­ter the new in­ter­is­land fast fer­ry A.P.T. JAMES docked in To­ba­go on Jan­u­ary 21, he said he was al­ways con­cerned it might ar­rive here.

"I have been wor­ried from day one, and I con­tin­ue to be wor­ried, be­cause you would have seen on in­ter­na­tion­al news how easy it is to go from a com­fort zone to calami­ty," the PM said.

Speak­ing to sup­port­ers on the cam­paign trail, lat­er that day, Dr. Row­ley, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PMM), told To­bag­o­ni­ans he was pre­pared to close the in­ter­is­land bor­der be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go when he first heard of the virus last year.

"We took the de­ci­sion that be­cause To­ba­go... is an is­land with a small pop­u­la­tion.  We would move heav­en and Earth to try and pre­serve the health of the peo­ple of To­ba­go," he told par­ty sup­port­ers at Mt. Pleas­ant.

He added: "When we did not know enough about this virus... all we had to go on was what we were see­ing in Berg­amo in Italy... and while I called the na­tion to a Day of Prayer... I had to de­cide that if we are fac­ing what the Ital­ians are fac­ing, and the on­ly de­fence we had in To­ba­go is to tell To­bag­o­ni­ans we were close the bor­der be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go, I will do that."

In­stead, it be­came nec­es­sary to close the in­ter­na­tion­al bor­ders and man­age na­tion­als re­turn­ing home, the PM said.

He said it was a "good de­ci­sion".

He said cries to re­open the bor­ders would re­sult in crit­ics say­ing "the gov­ern­ment failed to man­age".

He said the gov­ern­ment's man­age­ment of COVID-19 showed it is the best par­ty to con­trol To­ba­go dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

He urged el­i­gi­ble vot­ers to do their civic du­ty and vote in the elec­tions on Mon­day "for the strongest team with the best pro­gram".