Prime Minister doctor Keith Rowley on Friday night announced that he has no intention of extending the current state of emergency and curfew which ends at the end of November.

The Prime Minister spoke during a press conference held shortly after he returned from the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland where he gave details of discussions held during the summit.

The SoE was originally declared by President Paula-Mae Weekes on May 15 and on May 24, a motion was brought to the Parliament to extend the SoE for three months.
It was passed with a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives only. That first three-month extension expired on midnight August 29 and a second extension was sought and was approved in the House of Representatives with all Government MPs voting in favour of the extension and all Opposition MPs abstaining from voting.
Any further extensions, according to Section 10 (2) of the Constitution, will require the support of a three-fifths majority of the House and also of the Senate.
“The State of Emergency Is coming to an end at the end of this month and as of now I don’t have any intention of asking the parliament to extend it,” he expressed.

The Prime Minister said he thinks by now, citizens would have gone into a routine and he trusts that the population should be able to cope and do what is needed to be done.

According to Dr. Rowley, “ This is no longer a short term situation. This situation that we are in, we are in it for the long haul.”

He added that during his travels he observed that the UK is heavily vaccinated and noted that they have experienced significant population loss, but they did have control of vaccine supply. Therefore T&T’s low vaccination rates and high requirements of hospital care differs from the low vaccine hesitancy rates in the UK.

The similarity? Dr. Rowley said those unvaccinated are flooding the healthcare system.