The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will be step­ping up its mon­i­tor­ing of those COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients who are be­ing home quar­an­tined.

Con­fir­ma­tion has come from Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob, who says they will be clamp­ing down on those per­sons in breach of their home quar­an­tine or­der.

“Of­fi­cers have start­ed the process of flag­ging per­sons who are sus­pect­ed of breach­ing their quar­an­tine or­ders,” the Ag Com­mis­sion­er stat­ed in a news re­lease.

The TTPS says it has ini­ti­at­ed a pi­lot project which will be used as a guide to de­ter­mine the scale of op­er­a­tions need­ed to ful­ly im­ple­ment this mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem.

“Po­lice teams will wear full Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment when they ef­fect ar­rests of of­fend­ers. Oth­er­wise, vis­its to ver­i­fy com­pli­ance with quar­an­tine con­tin­ue to be per­formed by of­fi­cers who wear masks and gloves, while main­tain­ing a safe dis­tance,” the Act­ing CoP dis­closed. “The spe­cial teams may be ac­com­pa­nied by health of­fi­cials for the is­suance of fresh or­ders in cer­tain cas­es.”

To date, all of the per­sons who test­ed pos­i­tive for Covid-19 virus and were flagged and vis­it­ed by the spe­cial teams, have been found at their quar­an­tine lo­ca­tion, the TTPS re­lease not­ed.

The Ag Com­mis­sion­er al­so re­minds cit­i­zens that it is an of­fence un­der the Quar­an­tine Act to break their quar­an­tine and do­ing so car­ries a fine of TT$6,000 or six months in prison. It is al­so an of­fence to give false in­for­ma­tion to an of­fi­cial act­ing un­der the au­thor­i­ty of the Act.

He added: “Cit­i­zens are ad­vised that po­lice of­fi­cers can en­ter premis­es with­out a war­rant, to en­force com­pli­ance with the Quar­an­tine Act and that the TTPS is pre­pared to pros­e­cute those who breach the quar­an­tine or­ders to the fullest ex­tent of the law.”