The man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and car deal­er­ships got the green light to re­sume busi­ness from Mon­day as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced plans for the phased re­open­ing of the coun­try.

In an­oth­er wel­come move, Row­ley on Sat­ur­day an­nounced that restau­rants and the food sec­tor will be al­lowed to re­open for dri­ve-through, curb­side and take­away ser­vices on­ly from Ju­ly 19, ob­serv­ing all health pro­to­cols.

Row­ley al­so lift­ed the ban on all out­door ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing ex­er­cise, lim­it­ing to groups of five peo­ple.

There was re­lief as the Prime Min­is­ter made the wel­come an­nounce­ment at the COVID-19 up­date at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann's.

"The next big group of peo­ple that we would try to get back to some se­mi-nor­mal arrange­ment is the food es­tab­lish­ment and restau­rants. You have a week to pre­pare.

"Once we go back to the food ser­vice tens of thou­sands of peo­ple would be in­ter­act­ing again and you add that to the con­struc­tion work­ers and you'd see that we are in fact ex­pos­ing more and more peo­ple in par­al­lel with the ma­jor vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme," he said.

"We would like to be­gin on Ju­ly 19 so you have a week to pre­pare," he said.

"It is for good rea­son that we start this on Mon­day and not on Fri­day or Sat­ur­day. I would love to an­nounce Fri­day but I know ex­act­ly what is go­ing to hap­pen. I know my peo­ple."

Row­ley said he want­ed to avoid the "ef­fects of the eu­pho­ria."

"Take it slow­ly. I know you miss­ing the dou­bles but re­mem­ber, when you go in line, stay six feet away from the per­son in front of you and wear your mask and clean hands, al­ways," he said.

The con­struc­tion sec­tor opened last week and some 40,000 peo­ple were brought back in­to that sec­tor.

With re­gards to out­door ex­er­cise, the Prime Min­is­ter said team sports are still not al­lowed.

Row­ley said he ex­pects to have more re­stric­tions rolled back by the end of Ju­ly and be back to some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy by Au­gust.

The coun­try is ex­pect­ed to open the bor­ders by Ju­ly 19 and Row­ley said that two days be­fore that there would be more de­tails on how the air­lines would make it work. On Wednes­day the Min­istries of Health and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will be host­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence where they are ex­pect­ed to give a de­tailed ex­pla­na­tion of the re­open­ing of the air­ports and the process to en­sure it is safe­ly man­aged.

At the end of April, restau­rants and bars were shut down and re­mained closed for al­most three months.

In that time, there have been many com­plaints about the com­plete shut­ter­ing of the food es­tab­lish­ments. One ma­jor restau­rant, Chaud, has an­nounced that it will shut down while an­oth­er, El Pecos, re-reg­is­tered as a mar­ket and sold its pre­pared and pre-pack­aged food along­side gro­cery items and goods.

There have been calls over the past few months for the food sec­tor to re­open with re­stric­tions on in-house din­ing, some have called for the restau­rant to be re­opened to al­low for the same curb­side and de­liv­ery ser­vices that will be avail­able from Ju­ly 19.

ANSA Motors showroom on Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain.

Anisto Alves

The an­nounce­ment:

*All restau­rants, food es­tab­lish­ments, itin­er­ant and non-itin­er­ant food ser­vices will be al­lowed to pro­vide dri­ve-through, curb­side and take­away ser­vices from Ju­ly 19. No con­sump­tion of food will be al­lowed on site.

*The re­sump­tion of out­door ex­er­cise and ac­tiv­i­ty in pub­lic spaces, lim­it­ed to groups of five (Ju­ly 19).

From Ju­ly 12:

*All sec­tors of man­u­fac­tur­ing will be al­lowed to re­sume.

*The re­open­ing of car deal­er­ships.

*Fur­ther re­moval of re­stric­tions will be an­nounced at the end of Ju­ly.

*A ship­ment of 800,000 dos­es of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vac­cine is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive on Ju­ly 13.