Full Statement as Presented April 7, 2020 – Good evening Turks and Caicos. It’s the Governor speaking.
A short but important
announcement this evening. We’ve now been in curfew and lockdown
for 11 days. From a national perspective, it’s going well and we are grateful
we have strong public support for which myself, the Premier, the Cabinet and
the police want to say thank you.
The weekend we are approaching –
the Easter weekend – is traditionally one where business activity slows
considerably. In the belief that you will meet us half way we want to use
this Easter period to just slow, still further, the amount of movement and
comingling on the Island.
Let me start by saying what I’m
not about to announce is a confirmation of a rumor that started to circulate
today that Cabinet was going to order a complete lockdown over Easter. That was
false; we are not.
Over this Easter period, you may
still exercise in the morning and evening, within the set times, and if you
hold a specific exemption – such as needing to care for someone that needs care
– you may attend to their needs. But you must have an exemption.
There will also be some businesses
that will still function and they are obvious, medical facilities including
doctor’s offices; hotels where guests are in residence; ferry services for
emergency cases; commercial aviation, airports and security service businesses.
But beyond those we are though
going to close down all other businesses for two and a half days. This will be
the afternoon (starting at noon) on Maundy Thursday, 9th April, all
of Good Friday (the 10th April) and Easter Sunday (12th
April).
Over this Easter period essential
businesses that have been operating during this period of lockdown may operate
on Saturday 11th April and Easter Monday 13th April.
I’ll say that again. All
businesses will be closed from after ‘noon’ on Thursday. They will stay closed
on Friday. They will open on Saturday, close on Sunday, open on Monday.
We do this for two reasons.
We have eight confirmed cases on the Islands and we now have evidence of
on-island transmission. In other words, a small number of these individuals had
no travel history and so they have been exposed on the Island.
In a measured way we want to yet
further put distance between our population at the places our population most
come into contact with strangers, or indeed friends. At present the most likely
places this happens are the businesses that are open.
The second reason is that, while
many have been able to have considerable time at home with family, this has not
been true for our front line services.
Police and immigration officers
have not only been working extremely long hours securing the lockdown and
curfew, but have had the extra challenge of dealing with the interception of
sloops and subsequent repatriations. Others have had long hours in other
essential services where we have reduced staffing to the bare minimum.
Utilizing this Easter holiday
period gives us the opportunity to let these people take a breath and
seriously reduce the traffic on the road – people won’t have the opportunity to
visit a business because there will be no business to visit – and that will
allow our front line services some space to refresh. There will of course
be no let-up in policing, just matters will be more manageable for those on
duty and our Marine Branch will remain – as it always is – primed and deployed.
These decisions were made by the
National Emergency Operations Centre, chaired by the Premier and myself and
agreed in a cabinet paper. Regulations have been drafted and will be in force
covering this change. Tonight we will have graphics up on social media
explaining, and I’ll publish the text of this address.
We are giving notice this evening
so again you can use the next day and a half to prepare sensibly. There’s no
need to panic buy, or rush. You’ve all worked out for yourselves that the
stores are well stocked and will continue to be so. Stay calm as they say, and
carry on.
Now a look ahead. Given that
almost every other country in the world has extended its lockdown period it’s
not unreasonable for many to ask what the Cabinet’s view will be on this, when
ours expires in the middle of next week.
The answer is that the decision
has not been taken, the more data we have in making this decision the better.
It will though be taken this week or weekend by Cabinet, and communicated early
to you, so again if preparations are needed they can be done in a sensible
measured way.
The Cabinet will be strongly
guided by Ministry of Health on this and we have asked for a very detailed
paper laying out the case, for and against, systematically.
All in all, though I do want to
say that myself, the Premier, the Commissioner of Police and Minister of Health
judge overall compliance has been extraordinarily good. We are up at around 90%
or above and that does give us the very best chance of defeating this. TCI you
are at the moment the envy of many others in the region for the way we are all
holding together on this.
Away from this I do want to call
out, as at times I have done in the past, a malicious use of fake news. Imagery
circulated today suggested a huge Sloop was in Provo. It wasn’t. For
those that risk their lives out on the sea stopping this happening, and for the
last eight months they have an extraordinary high success rate, can you
imagine how disheartening this is?
But beyond just undermining
people, who I see as amongst our present national heroes, a few weeks ago this
type of fake news would have been wrong – in a moral sense – because it was
produced by a person that wanted to cause fear and generate hate. The difference
today, under new law, is that this is now a criminal offence. As a result, a
police investigation has started; I look forward to a future prosecution.
Perhaps a final note to say that
the ‘Security Assistance Team’, the Premier and myself greeted yesterday, are
now settled in quarantine. Myself and the team leader, Lieutenant Colonel Steve
Jones, had a three-way teleconference with his commanding General today in the
UK.
The team are very clear on their
initial task which is to properly understand the health capacity in all its
forms we have in TCI so we can support and help build greater capacity against
COVID19 while, at the same time, understanding how UK military capability –
which comes in different forms –can support our anti-illegal immigration
operations.
The two of course link together
in terms of the fight against COVID19. They have a further set of sub-tasks
such as hurricane preparedness and support to building our regiment but the two
main tasks will dominate.
That’s it for now TCI. Day 11
over, day 12 soon to begin. I’ve barely left the house for the last few days –
and there’s a lot I miss – not least the beaches and the sea – I guess they
will only be all the better when I can enjoy them again – which of course I
will.
Good night.
Provided by the Governor’s Office, Turks and Caicos Islands
in coordination with the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force (RT&CIPF) Marine Branch, the TCI Regiment, and the TCI Border Force, intercepted a vessel carrying 103 migrants bound for Providenciales.
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