AN activist is asking who else is being quarantined after being in contact with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley who is Covid-19 positive.
Head of the Citizens Union of Trinidad and Tobago Phillip Edward Alexander asked if Dr Rowley’s wife, family, house staff or members of his Special Branch detail were also in quarantine.
In a statement on Thursday, Alexander asked: “No one in government, no assistant, not one single person in the multiples of exchanges and interactions a prime minister must have every day to operate the business of state, not one other person has fallen ill, and we are expected to still believe that this virus is so contagious if you have a drink with dinner at a restaurant you could lose composure and spread it?
Dr Rowley was expected to still chair the Cabinet on Thursday and also have other virtual meetings as current chairman of CARICOM.
Alexander said, “We are rushing forward the narrative that all our people must be vaccinated even the young and strong, but this elderly man with a congenital bad heart can continue working and holding meetings as normal?
“The take away the Prime Minister and his co-conspirators in the Ministry of Health wants you to believe is the virus is highly contagious but not in Tobago or around him even though he instantly became a primary spreader and was very active for the 14 days before his positive test, and it is so frighteningly bad still that it will kill you and all your family but not him or his?”
He said if Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh and Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram believed that this was a pandemic of such a “virulent nature” would there have not been “a massive quarantine” for all who had interacted with Dr Rowley.
Alexander said these contradictions could lead to legal challenges.
He said, “Surely these contradictions can form the basis of court action when challenging the extra-constitutional powers the government has took for themselves in time, But the public is not a kindergarten and ‘you say so’ is not good enough when dealing with enshrined citizen’s rights and essential liberties.”
Alexander added, “This virus is either so bad that it requires giving the government untrammeled power to shut down, lockdown and dispense without concern the nation’s patrimony outside of the rule of established law so as to save us all, or it is simply a contagious virus that, while capable of spreading, is manageable and no longer capable of killing without mercy regardless of age or pre-existing conditions, as is being demonstrated by the prime minister himself.”
He said in the absence of clarity from government, the public will be left to draw their own conclusions.
Alexander said, “The prime minister is the chief servant of the people and bears a special responsibility to be honest, up front and transparent if the state is to hold together.”
