A site in Cou­va has been se­lect­ed for con­struc­tion of a chiller for the COVID-19 vac­cine. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said on Sat­ur­day they will be go­ing out to ten­der short­ly for this.

“We are con­tin­u­ing with plans to build the chiller and a step-down at Cou­va,” he added.

The Min­istry of Health has al­ready en­gaged the T&T Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion to as­sist with the dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme. He said stor­age fa­cil­i­ties could not be ad­vanced be­fore as they had been wait­ing to learn more about the vac­cine’s char­ac­ter­is­tics.

Mean­while, the min­is­ter said a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team had been set up as part of T&T’s pre­pared­ness to re­ceive the COVID-19 virus months ago. He said in terms of lo­gis­tics, stor­age, IT, fi­nance, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, this team is in place and has been work­ing.

The min­siter, who was speak­ing at the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 me­dia brief­ing, al­so urged cit­i­zens: “Don’t let COVID-19 parang your house this Christ­mas.” Like last week, the min­is­ter again ap­pealed to peo­ple to cel­e­brate qui­et­ly this year.

Deyals­ingh said he has reached out to Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don and head of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) Dr Knol­ly Clarke to coun­sel their re­spec­tive con­gre­ga­tions about the dan­gers of open­ing their homes and ex­pand­ing cir­cles to in­clude out­siders.

He said while Christ­mas is a time for re­joic­ing, cel­e­brat­ing the birth of Je­sus Christ, in­creased prayer and so­cial gath­er­ings, cit­i­zens could not af­ford to be­come com­pla­cent and let their guard down.

Point­ing to the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions where the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty heed­ed the call to keep the cel­e­bra­tions small and qui­et, Deyals­ingh said the in­fec­tion num­bers that were record­ed in the weeks af­ter in­di­cat­ed there had been no “se­ri­ous uptick in cas­es that we could say was due to Di­vali." Deysls­ing said "the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty re­spond­ed bril­liant­ly to our calls and that is how you can cel­e­brate a holy and im­por­tant fes­ti­val safe­ly. We are ask­ing the same thing now of the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty and al­so be­cause Christ­mas is cel­e­brat­ed by all re­li­gions and all peo­ple.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the men­tal stress peo­ple had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing as a re­sult of the COVID-19 lock­down and the sub­se­quent re­stric­tions, the min­is­ter said it was a small sac­ri­fice to make in or­der to pre­serve lives.

He said, “Con­sid­er these lit­tle sac­ri­fices, and they are lit­tle, an in­vest­ment in your fu­ture for 2021.”

Tweak­ing the tra­di­tion­al new year greet­ing slight­ly, Deyals­ingh sug­gest­ed, “Now we have to tell peo­ple to have a safe and healthy New Year and to try and be alive for 2021.”

Rolling out the MOH’s wish list for mid to late De­cem­ber, he said they want­ed to see a de­cline in deaths; a de­crease in peo­ple need­ing to be hos­pi­talised; and greater pro­tec­tion of the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion whom he said would “bear the brunt of our cel­e­bra­tion this Christ­mas.”

Ques­tioned if the MOH had found any leg­isla­tive frame­work through which the pub­lic could be charged for not ad­her­ing to pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions es­pe­cial­ly so­cial dis­tanc­ing and re­strict­ing num­bers at so­cial gath­er­ings, Deyals­ingh said, “The Le­gal De­part­ment of the MOH un­der the sug­ges­tion of the of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, has been con­fer­ring with the Of­fice of the AG to see if and how that can be done.”

But he added, “We should not wait for the State to do any­thing puni­tive. What we are ask­ing peo­ple to do is just be re­spon­si­ble this Christ­mas.”

Ad­mit­ting that 80 per cent of peo­ple who con­tract­ed the virus would be able to “shrug” it off, he warned that it was in re­turn­ing home af­ter lim­ing and par­ty­ing that these peo­ple could in­fect their el­der­ly rel­a­tives.

“You may think that you ex­ist in your own lit­tle bub­ble but once you in­ter­act with peo­ple, you are in­ter­act­ing with per­sons of dif­fer­ent bub­bles,” Deyals­ingh said.

“That is what we are scared about this De­cem­ber. It just takes one spark to in­fect one of those bub­bles…it could be the small lime, it could be the gym, it could be your work­place, it could be your kids class­es, it could be your part­ner’s job, it could be your in-laws, and that is what we are try­ing to avoid this De­cem­ber be­cause if we start to get those sparks, the sparks grow in­to a wild­fire where each bub­ble now be­comes in­fect­ed.”

The min­is­ter re-em­pha­sised that COVID-19 was no re­specter of so­cio-eco­nom­ic class, eth­nic­i­ties, ge­og­ra­phy, and ed­u­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

In­di­cat­ing he had turned down all in­vi­ta­tions dur­ing this sea­son and had closed his doors to the num­bers that usu­al­ly drop by dur­ing the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, Deyals­ingh said his fam­i­ly’s cel­e­bra­tions would al­so be low-key as he was a 63-year-old di­a­bet­ic who did not want to spend Christ­mas be­ing in­tu­bat­ed and de­pend­ing on the med­ical sys­tem to see a new year.