Coronavirus Restriction: Trinidad Sends Back Female Passenger From Hong Kong

The year started with a deadly virus originating from Wuhan in China. The coronavirus was confirmed in the Chinese city on January 7, 2020. Cases have since been confirmed in several other Asian countries, Europe and the United States. However, in what would have been the first confirmed coronavirus case in Africa; Ivory Coast’s health ministry on Wednesday said the suspected case of coronavirus in the country had tested negative.

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that range from the common cold to MERS coronavirus. Which is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus and SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus.

Trinidad And The Virus

However in the Caribbean islands of Trinidad; A fe­male pas­sen­ger who ar­rived at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from Guyana on Mon­day night. On a jour­ney that orig­i­nat­ed in Hong Kong was sent back to the port of em­barka­tion.

This was con­firmed by Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram who said the woman; “did not have any symp­toms of coronavirus or any­thing that was sus­pi­cious. But she was re­turned be­cause of the trav­el re­stric­tions from Chi­na.”

He told Guardian Me­dia; “I be­lieve she would have gone through oth­er ter­ri­to­ries, in­clud­ing Hong Kong, New York and Guyana and then to Trinidad. Based on our trav­el re­stric­tions for per­sons leav­ing Chi­na with­in 14 days of de­par­ture; she was re­turned to the last port of call based on the Cab­i­net note and the im­mi­gra­tion laws.

“I don’t know what flight she came in from but I on­ly know of that woman who came in from Guyana; and she would have spent some time at our air­port wait­ing on de­par­ture back to the port of call.”

Com­ment­ing on the in­ci­dent dur­ing an in­ter­view of CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew; Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews said of­fi­cials at this coun­try’s ports of en­try are alert­ed right away; via ad­vance pas­sen­ger in­for­ma­tion from air­lines—when pas­sen­gers orig­i­nate from Chi­na.

Trinidad Screening

How­ev­er, some per­sons have more com­pli­cat­ed trav­el itin­er­aries and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials are on­ly able to de­duce their ori­gin dur­ing the in­ter­view. And by look­ing at all their trav­el doc­u­ments and pass­ports. “We had one such case yes­ter­day and that pas­sen­ger was re­turned to their port of en­try,” she said.

“They were screened by port health; there was no is­sue. How­ev­er, be­cause of the trav­el ban, that per­son was re­turned to their port of em­barka­tion.”

Ghan­di-An­drews said cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents of this coun­try can­not be re­fused en­try. How­ev­er, they will be screened and pos­si­bly even quar­an­tined if they have re­turned from a coun­try of in­ter­est for the virus, and pose a po­ten­tial in­fec­tion risk.

Concerned Airport Workers

The in­ci­dent caused some con­cern among air­port work­ers, in­clud­ing Im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms of­fi­cers, who are call­ing for more strin­gent screen­ing process­es, in­clud­ing full-body sani­ti­sa­tion spray­ing for all ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers as they dis­em­bark from the re­spec­tive air­craft.

As a result, One air­port work­er, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said: “We think that there should be more pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures at the air­port… maybe have a sys­tem where all pas­sen­gers are screened and sani­tised by full-body spray­ing be­fore they en­ter the ter­mi­nal. The avail­abil­i­ty of more gloves, face masks and hand sani­tis­ers too.”

Ghan­di-An­drews said 1,000 masks were or­dered last week and it is be­com­ing “more im­per­a­tive that all of­fi­cers utilise it.”

With re­gards to the screen­ing process, she said an as­sis­tant chief and two Grade IV of­fi­cers have been as­signed to the air­port to over­see the coro­n­avirus screen­ing process. Dr Vish­wanath Par­taps­ingh, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer at the Health Min­istry, said risk of the nov­el coro­n­avirus nCoV-2019 spread­ing to T&T is rel­a­tive­ly low, com­pared with oth­er places. How­ev­er, while there is no need to pan­ic, the coun­try can­not af­ford to be com­pla­cent. Dr Par­taps­ingh says the screen­ing sys­tems are ex­treme­ly de­tailed to de­ter­mine trav­ellers’ pos­si­ble ex­po­sure to nCov-2019, once they are com­ing from coun­tries of in­ter­est.

Mask On And Hand Washing

“When you look at the ex­it screen­ing of those com­ing out of these ports, it is quite in­tense. There is a tem­per­a­ture scan­ning. There is al­so the ex­po­sure his­to­ry as­cer­tained: ‘Did you trav­el or go to a mar­ket with live an­i­mals? Did you have any live an­i­mals? Did you come in­to con­tact with any­one who dis­played any of the symp­toms?’ That is the base of the screen­ing,” he said.

“When you look at the cas­es in the oth­er coun­tries out­side of main­land Chi­na, the cas­es all had a di­rect ex­po­sure his­to­ry—ei­ther trav­el to or had a di­rect, close con­tact with some­one who was con­firmed with a case.”

Although, Dr Par­taps­ingh said re­duc­ing risk ul­ti­mate­ly comes down to each per­son prac­tis­ing good hy­giene at all times, es­pe­cial­ly when cough­ing and sneez­ing, and most im­por­tant­ly—fre­quent­ly wash­ing one’s hands with soap and wa­ter.

He al­so warned about coronavirus cross con­t­a­m­i­na­tion for those us­ing masks and gloves to pro­tect them­selves from pos­si­ble in­fec­tion.

“You have a mask on, you think all is well, you have gloves on; you think all is well. But then you’re on the phone, You have the pen, you touch the pass­port. You ad­just the mask. And so, you have the po­ten­tial to cross con­t­a­m­i­nate for any virus or any sort of pathogen that comes in.

“Hand wash­ing is key. Main­tain­ing a dis­tance with some­one who you know is sneez­ing and cough­ing is key.”

Trinidad Travel Restriction

Last Thurs­day, Cab­i­net agreed to a trav­el re­stric­tion on any­one trav­el­ling from Chi­na to T&T, in light of the spread of the coro­n­avirus. Additionally, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­in­gh an­nounced that “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.”

Jamaica At Risk

The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a visit to Jamaica, cautioned the island against taking “easy money” from China, warning it could be counterproductive.

Now it turns out that China’s “easy money” should be the least of Jamaica’s problems. Jamaica is constantly letting in Chinese businessmen and women into the country without any kind of medical evaluations. However, If this practice continues, the country is running the risk of introducing the coronavirus to the people of Jamaica.