T&T Cabinet announces 14-day travel restrictions from China

A Taiwanese man wears a mask at a metro station in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. According to the Taiwan Centers of Disease Control (CDC) Tuesday, the eighth case diagnosed with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has been confirmed in Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

(Trinidad Guardian) Cab­i­net has agreed to a trav­el re­stric­tion on any­one trav­el­ling from Chi­na to Trinidad and To­ba­go, in light of the spread of coro­n­avirus.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh says that with im­me­di­ate ef­fect – once nec­es­sary le­gal pro­vi­sions are put in place -”per­sons who are present­ly liv­ing in Chi­na or vis­it­ing Chi­na, re­gard­less of na­tion­al­i­ty, will not be al­lowed en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go for 14 days af­ter leav­ing Chi­na.”

Speak­ing at yester­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, he added: “If you left Chi­na to­mor­row you will not be al­lowed in­to T&T un­til Feb­ru­ary 14.”

He said the rea­son for the 14 days is that the in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od for coro­n­avirus lasts for that pe­ri­od.

He said it is now for the at­tor­ney gen­er­al’s of­fice and the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer to ef­fect the trav­el re­stric­tions.

The min­is­ter added that the Min­istry of Health, un­der the pub­lic health or­di­nance, will des­ig­nate coro­n­avirus as a dan­ger­ous in­fec­tious dis­ease as done with Ebo­la in 2014.

He said that once that is done these mea­sure will be put in­to ef­fect al­most im­me­di­ate­ly.

The min­is­ter said that 18,588 peo­ple have been screened af­ter ar­riv­ing at Pi­ar­co and no one has so far been found with the virus.