Trinidad bans cruise ships for rest of the season

By Stabroek News On In Trinidad & Tobago News |
A Coast Guard patrol boat keeps watch on the Grand Princess cruise ship while docked at the Port of Oakland on Wednesday in Oakland, California. After days of being forced to idle off the Northern California coast, the ship docked Monday at Oakland with about 3,500 passengers and crew, including some who tested positive for the new virus. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has now announced that all cruise ships will be barred from docking at T&T ports for the remainder of the cruise ship season.
A Coast Guard patrol boat keeps watch on the Grand Princess cruise ship while docked at the Port of Oakland on Wednesday in Oakland, California. After days of being forced to idle off the Northern California coast, the ship docked Monday at Oakland with about 3,500 passengers and crew, including some who tested positive for the new virus. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has now announced that all cruise ships will be barred from docking at T&T ports for the remainder of the cruise ship season.

(Trinidad Guardian) Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says no cruise ships will be al­lowed to berth in ei­ther Trinidad or To­ba­go for the rest of the cruise ship sea­son.

Speak­ing at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Deyals­ingh said the de­ci­sion was tak­en as the Gov­ern­ment steps up its ef­forts to stop or de­lay the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) from reach­ing T&T’s shores.

 
He said ac­cord­ing to the cruise ship sched­ule, there were five cruise ships sched­uled to berth in Trinidad and sev­en in To­ba­go be­fore the end of the sea­son. The cruise ship sea­son runs from De­cem­ber 12, 2019 to April 24, 2020.

Deyals­ingh said the de­ci­sion was tak­en by Cab­i­net note on Thurs­day morn­ing.

“We don’t feel that we need to take on that type of risk, we want to pre­serve our health care sys­tem, our sup­plies and our test kits,” Deyals­ingh said.

He said the ban will af­fect trade and tourism but said the move is for the greater good to pro­tect the health of T&T’s 1.3 mil­lion pop­u­la­tion.

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment be­lieves that the first COVID-19 case that shows up in the coun­try will be an im­port­ed case and the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing all it can to pre­vent that sit­u­a­tion from hap­pen­ing as long as pos­si­ble.