PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: Trinidad and Tobago will impose a state of emergency from midnight to contain an increase of COVID-19 cases and related deaths, Prime Minister Keith Rowley said on Saturday.
Rowley also imposed a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. local time, with some exceptions to essential services including the energy sector, supermarkets, and pharmacies.
The twin island state was experiencing a third wave of COVID-19, Rowley said.
Seven hospitals caring for COVID-19 patients are at a critical stage of 73% overall occupancy, Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards added.
With a population of more than 1.3 million people, Trinidad and Tobago has registered 15,375 infections, 5,214 of them active, and 265 deaths, health ministry data showed.
Health officials have cited a highly transmissible Brazilian variant, first identified in a Venezuelan migrant, as a factor in the increase in cases.
Some 60,500 people have received their first vaccine dose but only 1,000 of these have received a second dose.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram.
Comments
0 comment