Amid coronavirus pandemic and the crew change situation, 300 crewmembers of the “Enchantment of the Seas” left the ship to be put in shoreside quarantine, in order to eventually return to their families.
In fact, seafarers’ quarantine was first scheduled to end on June 26, although health officials extended it for an additional “short period” of monitoring, as three new cases of COVID-19 were discovered in a second round of PCR testing.
In light of the above, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh decided to move the crew to a state facility for an extension of their quarantine.
Following this decision, crewmembers expressed their concerns that their transfer to a communal facility may increase their risk of contracting the virus, should there be any active cases. Instead, they suggested the Ministry of Health to let them sign a legal document and allow them to quarantine at home.
However, Minister Deyalsingh noted that the government would not abandon their current practice. “It is not the intention of this government at this point in time to go in contravention of the policies that have worked. We understand, we empathise and we sympathise with those persons on that ship” as he told Guardian.
At the same time, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram agreed with the minister’s decision, marking that the crew needed to be placed under the ministry’s care, as he said to Guardian:
“We can’t send 300 individuals to 300 households around the country—different places—and hope none of them become positive. We have to have them in places that are within our control. If any of them become positive then of course none of them would become a risk to the community in T&T and we’d be able to manage it much better”.
