Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley Hosts Media Conference - Monday May 3rd 2021

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, members of the media, my colleagues and our hard-working health staff led by CMO and his staff, members of the viewing and listening public both at home and abroad and on whatever platform you are, very good afternoon to you. It was only on Thursday, I think it was Thursday, I was in Tobago meaning to get back to Trinidad for the weekend press conference on Saturday, but being in continuous touch with the health department and analyzing, accepting and being educated by their analyses, we had Cabinet last Thursday but before Cabinet we had a full assessment of the country situation. After the Cabinet meeting I had to immediately address the country on the actions that we had to take in response to the numbers that were coming at us hard and fast. So last Thursday you would have got your update and we did take some actions in the form of rollback restrictions. Since then we have been monitoring our situation on all fronts and anticipating that the actions that we are taking are to have certain kinds of effects and we look to see what the response of the population is. From the very beginning we've always maintained that success or failure in this approach to managing COVID lies very heavily on how our individual members of the population react to the things that we are doing. So today that remains so. But this is a year and almost a year and a half we have been on this journey, and some people are very familiar with the route to the extent where they can disregard the destination. Some people are still skeptical, some people are still hopeful, and even some still think that God is a Trini and He won't let the virus get to us. So at this time I would like to ask CMO to take over and give us the data of our situation and the analyses that flow from the data collected, and then I will come back and respond to what is being told to the population.

Thank you very much, Dr. Richards. Before I go further, I would like to ask the Minister of... or maybe we should leave that for now. Since you're the Minister, I think you better come in now.

Alongside the washing of the hands, the sanitization, and the wearing of the mask, I have every confidence that we will not end up at the place where those graphs are pointing us. And we cannot now say we do not know what that location is if we don't turn those graphs down. I can't say that, and as a decision maker in this country, the ultimate decision, you might say, I can only ask you to take actions. Just turn away from that. So I would like very much to give you notice that maybe on Wednesday or Thursday we will do XYZ, and you know exactly what that will do. Because if I do that, every Tom, Dick, and Harry and his men's dog will be in town tonight, and that's exactly what we don't want. So we're going to make some more changes as of midnight tonight. As of midnight tonight, all food service will be discontinued, and that includes itinerant or what you call street food selling. I am sure that there will be inconvenience here, but the corollary to that is I'm sure that most people, if not all, in this pandemic, in this crisis that is brewing, that you could feed yourself at home. You see, the idea behind closing the restaurants and the bars, as I just explained, I must admit I did not anticipate the level of replacement for the convenience of those who have been affected by that restriction, resulting in the very thing that we're trying to discourage being encouraged by those actions. And I also refuse to believe that in a pandemic where death is our portion, to accept that we cannot do what has to be done to get by until the 23rd of May. And of course, all retail would be discontinued for a specific period of time, the details of which will come to you by morning. And that's non-essential retail. We will still keep the essentials going: the pharmacy, groceries, hardwares, so on. You will get the list; it's the same list we used early on that we will bring back out. We used that list in April 20th, we will more or less bring back that list now. And of course, given the burning desire to be there with everybody else, we are forced now to restrict the opening hours again from 6 AM to 8 PM for food supply stores and pharmacies. And these are the essentials, and we are saying to the population again, for the days ahead as described, if you don't have to come out as an essential worker or don't have to come out for essential business, stay at home. Stay away from people. If you do that, you will minimize the chances. I can't give you any guarantee, but it gives you the best chance of not being infected, giving us as a country the best chance of not increasing our infection rate and, more importantly, of turning around the direction of the infection rate. We will add those changes to the list that we've done and we'll continue to enforce them vigorously. I just want to point out to the population, it's easy to pick on what we have restricted, but we have a lot going on still. The government guaranteeing an income to its employees have taken a significant block of employees out of circulation, and as such, we've left the private sector to also consider essentials there. But also, if you do as we expect you would as responsible people, that you will carry the ones that you have taken off, if only for this short period of time, make that sacrifice. Stop looking at the dollar, because if you look at that one dollar, it may be a thousand dollars lost later on, because I'm sure that the losses will be bigger if we get to the point of a collapse of the national health service and an overrun by the virus. So the essentials should stay in place. As you may recall, when we started out in January last year, we made it quite clear that because of the level of dependence on the energy sector, we will keep that sector open and do what has to be done, and thank God we did. We had one or two instances of infections on platforms and so, but by and large we kept that sector wide open. Manufacturing is still open. If you are involved in those businesses, follow the protocols and continue. It is the elective behavior that we are after. And unfortunately, the interpretation that if you are not designated essential means that you are a useless, non-essential worker is just unhelpful. It is that we are pulling back those persons who, if they are not out, we can continue for a while without them. But certainly, there are some people who have to be out there. I mean, the light and tech workers, they're out there all the time keeping us with power. You know what happens the minute the power goes? So they're out there keeping us with power. The WASA workers keeping us with water. The transportation workers taking those who have to travel. But you don't have to go to media partner to have a beer, and you don't have to go to the cinema. I'm sure the vast majority of those who have been going to the cinema have Netflix in the house. So for the moment, use what you have close by and diminish your exposure. For heaven's sake, we are appealing to you. Of course, I have a lot of friends who like to portray me in a variety of ways and, of course, to misrepresent what I see. A while ago, when I was cautioning about arriving at this station, I said if we do get to this point, we will not have the level of financial resources available to provide the level of support that we gave last year at this time, because the funds just aren't there to be as supportive as that. Of course, the way that it's put across is: 'The Prime Minister says, well, I'm going to get in trouble, get in trouble, not all of us. We are all in this trouble.' And of course, we have to be advised by our perpetual advisors that we have to provide support to people. Had they not told us that, we wouldn't have known that. So ladies and gentlemen, let me just give you an idea of the kind of support that this country provides to its population on an ongoing basis. And we in a difficult situation, after what we have done for the last year, we are saying now we are guaranteeing the effort to maintain the existing social support system. We're making cutbacks elsewhere, we're making rollbacks elsewhere in the land, we're taking pressure elsewhere, we're running up debt elsewhere, we are late paying elsewhere, but the one thing that we are undertaking to keep going is the social support system. And what is that social support system? It is the senior citizens grant, where we support 107,000 people. And those of you who are following government's work would have seen how quickly that number has grown to 107,000. Not too long ago it was 80,000. We are now supporting 107,000 people. And that is costing upwards of four billion dollars. Social assistance, which is just people who look to the state for assistance, 19,000 people, that is 490 million dollars. There are people with disabilities who are supported by the state, 25,500 of those people, at 615 million dollars. There are people who get their main meals supported by food cards in this country, 30,500 of them, that's 185 million dollars. And during the COVID response, we supplied 25,000 food boxes to persons, and that absorbed the food that the farmers would have sold, some of it by contract to the restaurants that were closed and so on. And of course, if I go to the list from the people who are retrenched, terminated, or income reduced, we provided 237 million dollars in support to such persons. We also provided support for persons who had applied for senior citizen grant and disability grants but had not yet been processed, but simply because they had found themselves in a position to apply, we supported them. That was 14 million of that. And of course, we supplied food vouchers, almost seven million dollars of that. Rental assistance, 22 million. In short, in terms of additional support to the ongoing social support system for those thousands of persons I mentioned, we provided 360 million dollars in support across, of course, to a variety of categories of people. That is what I was saying: over and above the standard support for people who couldn't make it on their own, the additional people who came on who couldn't make it, they got 360 million dollars of government support. Today, as I talk with the Minister of Finance, we will revisit this template and ensure that all those who are on the social support system, who are on the system, that they get support. And for those who would look for the essentials of food, we will return to providing some support: five million dollars worth only for the month, half of May, until we're looking at grading towards May 31st. Five million dollars worth for those persons who can use their food boxes, which is agriculture and social services. The way it goes is that we did ask the MPs and others to help in forwarding the names to the Social Services Ministry. And the reason for that is that we don't want people getting six and seven and eight times when others don't get any. So if you're already on the social support system, when your name comes in there, the database ought to identify you as somebody who is not getting help, and then you qualify. And of course, the Agriculture Ministry will work with the farmers and the food distributors at the fresh food and to make sure that is so. And of course, for the month until end of May, we will provide almost 10 million dollars to the ecclesiastical bodies to help those persons who would look to them for support. And we will also determine how much more assistance we could give to those persons who have lost their income by virtue of the closure. One of the things we've been finding out – and I must say this to the country – what we did last year, we asked NIB to help us identify those persons who are on the NIV list. And if they had lost their employment, it was a pretty straightforward matter to get the help to them. What we found out is that a very large number of people were employed by employers who have a problem that is different to COVID. And that problem is that the employees were not being registered for any aspect of state recognition: not NIS, not taxes, not nothing. So when those workers lost their employment and you try to help them, saying that we come to you through NIB, we discover that these people were outside of the system in that way, causing problems for the department to try to help. Because if you don't have some parameter to determine who qualifies for the help, you know what's going to happen. And what was worse is that when the Department of Social Services asked some of those employers to confirm that these people are not double and triple dipping, or that they had in fact lost their job at your establishment, by virtue of a one-line letter, some of them refuse, on the grounds that to do so is to allow the authorities to know what they have been doing. And of course, that happens to some of the landlords as well. People who needed help were finding out that what they call the underground economy prefer to continue doing what they do, even if it means creating starvation conditions for the unfortunate. These are some of the issues that would have caused delays, and there are some of the issues that we will have to address going forward. But it's not something that we can address tonight for tomorrow. We will immediately make available somewhere between 40 and 50 million dollars. The Minister of Finance is working on that since last weekend to see what we can do to bring some form of assistance to those who are in greatest need. We are not in a position to replace what has been lost in total, because some people are behaving as if what has been lost has to be compensated for by somebody. Ladies and gentlemen, in this pandemic, there are going to be losses of quality of life, hopefully for a little while. You have been seeing the losses being reported by the private sector in the various businesses. Take that a bit further: those losses are going to be reflected in government's revenue. Because if the companies are being forced to restrict their production, or the purchasing power of the population has been reduced in any way, the end result of that is that profit overall, except in very few instances, would have been contracted. I saw one of our better companies reporting a 30 percent reduction in profits; another one reporting 15. And those are reductions to the shareholders, but the biggest loss in that is the loss of revenue to the government in the form of taxes which otherwise would have come to the government. So I want you all to consider all of these things when you get on the soapbox, because these are the realities. And to say that the government has thrown the population out, and all the advisors who give us advice for things that we hadn't thought about at all, and had they not raised it we wouldn't have thought about it, let me just understand and let you understand: it is not so at all. This government has gone way beyond what most governments have done in the world. But of course, in Trinidad and Tobago, you take it for granted. And the conversation, just very conversational, is upsetting by its repetition, because it is meant or it has the effect of giving you the impression that all fall down. All has not fallen down, and we are in a position to keep some things up by doing certain things at the personal, at the familial level. And that's where we are at the moment. And if we do the things that we're being asked to do, we expect, by virtue of the understanding of the experts of the nature of the virus, that maybe by the end of the month or thereabouts, we should be reporting different numbers. On the other hand, if we don't do these things, then the consequences will be dire. Ladies and gentlemen, we have shown that we could do this. We did it last year, and it worked well for us. When we said that Carnival would be cancelled, I said that last September. And there were lots of experts telling us what would be the result of that. Yes, the result was we had no Carnival, we had no street matches and so on and so on. But what we had in February was a serious positive response to the virus in February. That was the benefit of cancelling Carnival. We need that kind of benefit now. And I listen to everybody. I respect every point of view. But with respect to the decision making today, the point of view that trumps all others is the point of view of Dr. Marina Richards, who has shown me and has shown you that if we don't move hard now, within two weeks, we are going to be where others have been. What you call news from outside wouldn't be outside news; that would be the experience that is being enjoyed by the people of Trinidad and Tobago. And that is why I am making these decisions based on the advice and the data provided by those who show me and show you that if we don't take this medicine, our portion would be unthinkable. We could avoid it, but it's not going to be avoided by doing nothing, or by doing some of the things that get published as options. One of the options that I saw was one that says that the government shouldn't make any decision before consulting with them. You're falling off a roof and you're consulting who's in the house to bring the matches, so you can jump on a mattress? Let's consult. We do consult. None of these decisions that we make, not one, is being made capriciously on the basis of a quirk of the Prime Minister's character. Every decision we make and transmit to you is rooted in the work of the staff that is on the government's payroll in the Ministry of Health. Thank God they're there. Because just ask yourself: if the Health Department was not there to respond in the way that they have responded, to guide the government in this way, what would have been our position? And I will continue to be guided by the medical experts, the wide range of which, thankfully, we have in Trinidad and Tobago. But I also want to retain that confidence in my fellow citizens to trust in your responsible conduct, knowing that this is a pandemic and it requires that you do things that you wouldn't normally have done. Including, if you were eating two bananas, you might try to eat one for some good reason, either to make it last longer or to share it with somebody else. Ladies and gentlemen, we all have different responsibilities. And my responsibility as Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago is to make the call. And the call has been made. I expect that you will answer. If you have any questions, we will take them now.

So I reached out to the Minister of Education some time ago to get a list of her Form Four, Five, and Six teachers, because those are the ones that are physically out, and their principals and their vice principals. So she's working on that list. And once I get that list, then due consideration will be coming to that. Thank you.

Where we have not said specifically that those things that we have allowed exemptions to, they will continue. For example, we had given an exemption to the national teams to prepare. They will continue. We had given an exemption to those persons who protect turtles on the beach. That will continue. But we have stopped tours, so you're not to take tours out to the beach for the sea turtles. But those who are actually protecting the turtles can go out on the beaches even though the beaches are closed. So we did leave those things in place. So if you didn't hear that we have withdrawn the exemption, then it remains in place.

Well, again, I have a question here. There is scarce info on... They have indicated in the process of drawing up their sales contracts, but no firm dates and times as yet. So that is where we are with vaccine procurement at this point. Also, mention time, one of the bright lights of hope that we had was the Johnson & Johnson authorization that was issued. And there was a temporary review and that was overcome. And then there was the offer by the United States to put a large volume of AstraZeneca into the COVAX, and Johnson & Johnson was going to put a large output into the African Medical Supplies Platform. Those two pathways would have put us in a very good position. But there has been a problem in the United States with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the main production facility in Baltimore, where there has been some alleged contamination. And the government of the United States, having made the offer, is now having to look at whether in fact they do have that vaccine to be made available. And they're evaluating the safety of the supply system there. So without improved word from there, we would have lost that. The bottom line is that we still do not have vaccines available in commerce. Now that Moderna has been approved, and the US is at a stage where I think their position is anybody who wants a vaccine can get one as of the 19th or 17th of April. That tells us that we may have vaccines for commerce very soon. And once that is so, it will become a price and availability issue. But at least there will be a market in which you can purchase. So I did also see, among the information that we get daily in the public domain, the encouragement to have the private sector help us with it. Well, we would love to get help, but it still remains that we know of no situation where the private sector, as of today, has been able to access because they will have the same problem or worse in accessing vaccines, because vaccines are not available for purchase at this time. Maybe sometime in the not too distant future that may be so, and then there might be a bigger role for the private sector to use their resources and their infrastructure to help. But in the meantime, we move very slowly but surely to accessing COVAX, which we expect from all the contacts and information we have, that the COVAX will be receiving replenishments going forward. And that is good news for us.

Given that we could get over this phase, if we could see to the end of May as a country and not see that spike continue, that the borders remain as closed as possible to ensure that we do not see a resurgence.