Well, it had to happen. The country is officially in the second wave of COVID-19. Last week, we started getting spikes of confirmed cases of COVID-19 again. There seem to be about 4 or 5 separate cases that spawned clusters of about 30 other local cases over the last 12 days. At least one source is suspected to be from illegal immigrants but they are still trying to find the actual source(s). This has resulted in a flurry of new tests for the coronavirus, as contact tracing uncovered hundreds of primary, secondary and tertiary contacts for these patients.
Readers from foreign countries will probably think that this is a great result as they are accustomed to hundreds, even thousands, of new cases daily. But you have to understand that we had NO new cases for over 3 months (not counting those that emerged in state quarantine and posed no threat to the public). We thought we were COVID-free. People began to relax the social distancing, mask-wearing, etc. This in the middle of intense electioneering. Politicians, non-masked, were photographed jammed up with supporters, shaking hands, talking loudly, and so on. So the risk of this wave of the virus escalating is alarming.
All this was a bit too close to home for me, since one household cluster is less than a mile from me. The infected people were moving around, shopping and going to banks in my neighbourhood (even though sick) before their diagnosis. One of them attended the morning class at the pool where I do aquarobics in the evening. So that facility was shut down this week for sanitising and testing of instructors. We’d only just restarted those classes at the beginning of the month so that was disappointing.
Several shops, banks and businesses were closed for sanitisation and worried staff at these establishments began to self-quarantine while awaiting test results. To date, 4 schools have closed, as they were operating special classes for SEA students who were affected. Who knows how many other people were inadvertently exposed. The Prime Minister has announced that no more than 10 people may congregate outside. Schools, bars and restaurants are under watch for the next few days to see if they can successfully maintain health protocols.
Suddenly the media is reporting on the hundreds, maybe thousands, of Venezuelan refugees who have contravened our closed border policy. The government has announced that it is a crime to assist or harbour such people and they are encouraging citizens to report such activities. The Coast Guard are lamenting the overcrowded conditions at the heliport in Chaguramus where the captured refugees are held in quarantine before being sent back to Venezuela. This is turning into a humanitarian crisis! The BBC even made a documentary about the problem last year.
In the midst of all this, we were threatened by Tropical Storm Gonzalo last week. It was forecast to become a hurricane before making a direct impact on Port of Spain. Instead, the Sahara dust stamped it out and we barely noticed its passing. God is a Trini, they say. Actually the outer bands of T.S. Isaias a couple of days later caused far more flooding and downed trees, even though it was centred way to the north of us.
So here we are. Back to voluntary lockdown until things settle down. Thank God for Zoom.
Stay home, stay safe!
