Bar­bers and oth­ers of­fer­ing “beau­ti­fi­ca­tion” ser­vices to clients at home should stop do­ing so as they’re putting peo­ple at risk. And fun-lovers al­so risk a $50,000 fine and pos­si­ble jail if they con­tin­ue go­ing to beach­es, rivers, streams and springs be­fore April 15, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said Fri­day.

Up to last night, T&T had 100 cas­es and six deaths, while 722 peo­ple had been test­ed.

Speak­ing dur­ing Fri­day’s COVID-19 vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence, Young gave the warn­ing as he not­ed new con­cepts and ex­tend­ed dates added to the lat­est Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance is­sued on Thurs­day.

De­spite the “Stay Home” man­date in force since last Sun­day for two weeks, he said he saw con­tin­u­ing nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty along the Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain up to Thurs­day and point­ed out this kind of be­hav­iour may al­so be go­ing on in oth­er parts of the coun­try.

“We’ve got­ten re­ports of gath­er­ings and peo­ple try­ing to sneak in­to bars. Some still aren’t chang­ing be­hav­iour. Please stay home un­less ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary,” Young said.

He said peo­ple have told him about so­cial me­dia ads an­nounc­ing “beau­ti­fi­ca­tion” work­ers of­fer­ing to go to a client’s home to do their bar­ber­ing, hair and nails et cetera.

Young said, “This (as­pect) isn’t about en­force­ment of law, we’re plead­ing with peo­ple to stay home as this dead­ly virus is spread by con­tact. You may have no symp­toms - fever, cough - and go to some­one’s home. Amer­i­can sci­en­tists have said that by even by speak­ing too close to peo­ple it can al­so be spread.

“We know peo­ple want to con­tin­ue life and have to earn mon­ey, but the an­swer (on client con­tact and go­ing to peo­ple’s home) is no. Do­ing those non-es­sen­tial ac­tiv­i­ties and hid­ing be­hind walls - you’re putting peo­ple at risk.”

He al­so voiced con­cern for those plan­ning to par­take of road­side vend­ing.

“We’re see­ing peo­ple ad­ver­tis­ing on so­cial me­dia about road­side vend­ing and what they’ll do over the week­end. Peo­ple, un­der­stand - this is an in­vis­i­ble, odour­less, colour­less virus spread by con­tact,” Young said.

“If you pick up that road­side prod­uct, you run the risk of get­ting the virus and tak­ing it home to your fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. These aren’t nor­mal times. Those in oth­er coun­tries who tried to live like nor­mal, we’re see­ing ris­ing death tolls there. So ask your­self if that del­i­ca­cy you plan to buy is worth it.”

On out­door wa­ter-spot lim­ing, he said based on ex­pert med­ical ad­vice, Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed it’s no longer al­low­ing peo­ple at beach­es, rivers, streams and springs un­less their pres­ence in­volves do­ing ser­vices, in­clud­ing test­ing, in those ar­eas - like WASA or En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment work­ers.

The ban al­so ap­plies to re­li­gious gath­er­ings which were pre­vi­ous­ly con­duct­ed at such places.

“Last week­end, we con­tin­ued see­ing peo­ple at rivers. This is now il­le­gal, if you’re found there, you’ll get a fine of up to $50,000 and pos­si­ble jail. We hope po­lice don’t have to en­force this but they will - peo­ple, it’s not life as usu­al,” he said.

The pro­hi­bi­tion on lim­ing at those ar­eas con­tin­ues to April 15 un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance.

On an­oth­er mat­ter, he said the lim­it on five peo­ple con­gre­gat­ing is aimed at those in pub­lic non-es­sen­tial spaces and not gro­ceries, drug­stores and banks, which should have so­cial dis­tanc­ing mea­sures in place.

Young said Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith had called to ex­press con­cern at gath­er­ings out­side of banks and banks agreed with Young’s re­quest to put so­cial dis­tanc­ing mark­ings in place for the pub­lic. Gov­ern­ment’s al­so asked gro­ceries and drug­stores to put sim­i­lar mark­ings out­side premis­es and in cash­ing ar­eas.