T&T 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.