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Loopholes and Lawsuit-fears paralyzed officials on Super-Spreader Events
#TurksandCaicos, August 27, 2021 – The Disc Jockeys hosting the party concert weekend events were out-smarting law makers and jumping through loop holes admitted Minister of Health Jamell Robinson, who hosted a press debriefing on Wednesday to confront the myriad of issues related to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Government and Police had been criticised for not shutting down potential Covid-19 super spreader events and residents learned that the fear of being sued prevented action to end an August 20th weekend concert series, where American recording artist, Trina was the feature.
“We were alerted about the events taking place. So we had a meeting and discussed, well was this permitted through us? The answer was no. So the next question became, okay, can it go forward? And out of that discussion, we found that because of the location where the events were being purported to happen that there was a loophole in the regulations. Such that if you had the event at a normally operating business location, you would be able to get the capacity of 70 per cent vs the required permitting of 50 people.”
Super spreader events are suspected of being at the source of the recent surge; after all, numbers of new cases have been trending up since restrictions were relaxed in July. Warnings have been issued, threats have been levelled to suspend business licenses for social gathering and mask wearing breaches therefore this time, it is hoped the newest raft of rules will work.
“On further discussion, we said well if this event can take place under the law what is the plan to risk manage it taking place. So, we had a conversation with the compliance team and in that discussion, we also found out that the international artist who was visiting the country, had already received a temporary work permit to be in the islands. Not only did we have a loophole, we had one arm of Government issuing a permit for that person to be here when the other arm of government had no clue this was taking place,”explained the Minister of Health.
Instead of applying for their events to the Ministry of Health, the promoters danced past the Environmental Health Department and regulators leaving officials paralysed by reasonable fears of costly lawsuits.
“We can take the risk of quote on quote, shutting that event down, which many persons cried out and asked us to do. We would have left the government liable for not only the cost of the event being put on but also for defamation and damages to the promoter and the organisers of the event.”
The Minister said, certainly a law suit would have been imminent but now those loopholes are plugged.
Following a Cabinet decision, even more scrutiny will come for events which allow 50 people in attendance, as Dr. Nadia Astwood, the Chief Medical Officer will also have to approve the application.
Temporary work permits for performers, artists and entertainers are on freeze, indefinitely.
Additionally, since these events usually draw party-goers and revelers, a new mandate and tighter rules are in force as of next month.
“There will be no nationwide lockdown,” said Minister Robinson, “All night clubs and bars should will reduce their occupancy to 50 per cent of their registered capacity. Patrons at night clubs and bars must provide proof of being fully vaccinated. Bars and clubs to be responsible for verifying identity and vaccination status of all participants and a log book kept with the same and shared with the ministry of health and the environmental health department every Monday.”
Identity tags for patrons will also be introduced; a measure to come on stream by September 14. All other new measures take effect from Wednesday September 1.
Health and Police promise a better response to suspect and risky party events in future. The Ministry of Health has informed they do not know if these events have led to the coronavirus surge, hospitalizations or deaths due to a lack of cooperation in the contract tracing process.