Beaches are open …. sort of

Finally, just before the end of 2021, the government opened beaches (but not rivers) from 5am to 12 noon. No alcohol, no parties, and masks must be worn when not in the water or eating or drinking. This being the Christmas and New Year holidays, most people squashed themselves into the last two hours at popular beaches, thus defeating the purpose of avoiding congregating. A couple of weeks later, this time frame was extended to 2pm and now included rivers. On Monday, we will be allowed the freedom of salty sea breezes until 6pm.

Contact sports, such as football, are now being permitted in a controlled safe-zone way. Secondary schools and Standard 5 (primary schools) are being opened in a limited way in February. We are one of the last countries in the world to still have closed classrooms, and there are strong and passionate arguments on all sides of this situation. The banning of open-pyre cremations for COVID fatalities is another contentious issue that has finally been dropped. The fear was that bodily fluids could be ejected from the burning corpse onto the mourners. I guess that is also why COVID cases have to be buried in a separate part of a cemetery and a further three feet deeper than normal. The country was running out of space for designated COVID burials, and extra refrigeration had to be arranged to cope with the backlog of bodies.

All this time, known COVID-19 cases are reaching record highs as the Omicron variant becomes dominant in both islands. Interestingly, hospitalisations and deaths are stabilising and even decreasing. Is this marking the end of the pandemic and will it soon be downgraded to ‘endemic’? The Ministry of Health (MOH) is being very cautious about admitting this. We are all tired of restrictions and I am noticing more pandemic rule-breaking than ever before. The thrice-weekly MOH television broadcasts are now only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I only tune in when I think some interesting revelation might be made.

Still only 49.2% (just 2.4% more since my last post nearly 7 weeks ago) of T&T’s total population have been fully vaccinated, with nearly 110,000 people having had the extra booster shot. The MOH is preparing to receive children’s Pfizer doses to start vaccinating those aged between 5 and 11 years old. About 85% of hospital admissions of COVID patients are not fully vaccinated. Two-thirds of cases are below the age of 50, but this age group represents only a third of the COVID fatalities. There is now at least one Long COVID clinic opened up in Trinidad to treat and monitor long-term debilitating side-effects of the disease.

Many countries around the world are opening up their economies and activities fully, even removing mask mandates. However, they have the comfort of being heavily vaccinated (90%+) with most of their population having had third and fourth shots as boosters. Our country has the added danger of having one of the highest rate of diabetes and obesity in the world, both being very high-risk factors with COVID. The government is expanding its COVID parallel health system in anticipation of the effects of the highly-infectious Omicron variant on a largely unvaccinated population with risky co-morbidities.

Everyone is hoping that Omicron will mark the end of the pandemic. And quickly too before any more lethal variants rise up. Keep safe, all. I’m off to the beach!