PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — The Trinidad and Tobago government Saturday said it will extend the Public Health Regulations to July 4.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, speaking at a news conference here, said also while the government would be seeking to extend the state of emergency (SOE) for 90 days when the Parliament meets on Monday, the plan is to end it as quickly as possible.

“It will be based on the kind of responses we are getting. As we said earlier on, the more disciplined we are on this, the more successful we are in managing our infection level, the quicker we come out of this.

 “So when you see somebody doing something that is not helpful …is keeping us or giving us the opportunity to have to stay longer in this situation and on the other hand if you see people are doing the things that we are asking to be done, then you know we are doing things to get out of this as soon as possible,” Rowley said.

He told reporters that his administration has been trying to source vaccines for the country and thanked St Vincent and the Grenadines and Bermuda for sending a quantity of vaccine to be used here. Rowley also raised the possibility that Trinidad and Tobago would be looking towards Cuba for vaccine as soon as that country gets the nod from the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We are anxiously awaiting a Cuban vaccine to have an evaluation by the WHO where we can get some access to it. We would love to have access to a Cuban vaccine,” Rowley said, insisting that his administration would only allow for WHO sanctioned vaccines to be used here.

“While Cuba is testing two or three potential candidates, none of them has so far gone through the WHO approval process and has come out of it yet. So we are just waiting on that and we are hoping that happens, that will be very good news for us,” he told reporters.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said Trinidad and Tobago hopes to vaccinate a significant part of its population by August and would be using the vaccines received from China to assist in that regard.

Earlier, epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds, told reporters that while there had been some encouraging signs in the projected number of cases “we are not out of the woods” adding “we have to reduce the number of cases.

The Ministry of Health in its latest bulletin on Saturday, said there were 509 new cases pushing the number of positive cases since March last year to 19, 444. There have been 17 new deaths pushing the total to 365 over the same period.

Figures released during the news conference showed that over a seven-day average, there had been 508 people admitted to hospitals and more than 100 beds had been allocated to hospitals across the country.