Rowley State of Emergency extension was necessary

over 2 years in TT News day

The Prime Minister has said the extension of the state of emergency (SoE) was necessary to continue to reduce the interaction of people and the spread of the covid19 virus.
He said it was not an effort to trample on the freedom of citizens but to protect them.
Speaking on Brighter Morning with Bhoe on MCTV on Friday, Dr Rowley said the SoE was needed because “we are fighting a virus that jumps from person to person in the air, and the best response is to reduce the interactions between people.
"The SoE under force of law encourages people to stay put a bit.
“While they go out to their jobs during the day, that period from 9 pm-5 am where we reduce interaction prevents the virus from spreading as easily. It’s not that it’s more infectious in the night, it’s that the curfew reduces the length of time people are interacting. With a 9 pm curfew, people stop moving from 6 or 7 pm. We give up moving at night to be able to do the things we do in the daytime.”
He said while some might say government is taking away people’s freedoms, especially around Independence, it is concerned with shutting down the spread of the virus.
“You are more independent when you are alive. Yes, it affects the spirit of the celebration, but you can still reflect while not parading. While you may say the government has taken away your freedoms and you can’t go to the beach or the bar or the restaurant, the members of government are missing those freedoms too. But we are giving you the opportunity to survive a dangerous situation.”
Rowley said he was not surprised that the Opposition abstained from voting on the SoE extension, as ithad committed to not supporting anything the government brings to Parliament.
“They invested heavily in trying to get people to protest the extension of the SoE, to the point of getting people to come outside Parliament and protest.”
He said he understood that everyone is tired of the pandemic, and the past 18 months had been hard.
“It has been a frightening experience, even before the first confirmed case. We can’t switch off from the consequences of this virus. The years 2014-2019 were lows and now you have to come into 2020 and find resources. Remember when we started responding to the pandemic, experts were telling us that by September we should be out of it, and now we’re almost in 2022 and the pandemic is still our primary concern.”
Rowley said he knew the SoE was affecting people’s mental health on top of the pandemic.
“As necessary as it is, it does affect people. Under normal conditions in TT, families and friends visit each other and interact, and we don’t put a value on being able to go to see each other. Schoolchildren would be able to interact with each other daily in the schoolyard, and we are being warned how this generation could be affected by not having the interaction we take for granted. The restrictions would have an effect on us by restraining us from doing the things that normally keep us sane.
"We try to minimise the restrictions, at the level of the Cabinet we put them there only when absolutely necessary, and remove them as quickly as we could.”
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