A senior attorney-at-law on the island has accused the ruling New National Party (NNP) government of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell of being “deceitful” to Grenadians on the extent of the Covid-19 situation in the country.
The attorney spoke to THE NEW TODAY hours after it was announced in Port-of-Spain that three Trinidadians who left Grenada on Wednesday on a charter flight to the twin-island republic tested positive for the coronavirus on arrival at the Piarco International Airport.
“Grenadians need to know urgently that there is community spread (of the virus) in Grenada and they need to be careful,” he said.
Health Minister Nickolas Steele confirmed that the Trinidadians who were on the island since March had been staying in different parts of Grenada.
According to the lawyer, a senior employee at a local private medical facility had warned him months ago to be suspicious of the COVID-19 statistics being put out by the National Covid-19 team since they were doing private tests and were concerned about the situation based on their own results.
“He (top Medical facility worker) told me don’t believe the numbers, be careful, take precaution because they are lying about the numbers,” he said.
The medical facility is believed to be located in the south of the island and is known to be run by an individual who is associated to a close family member of a top figure in the NNP regime.
This newspaper understands that the private medical facility had approached the Ministry of Health weeks after the discovery of the virus on the island to grant them a license to conduct COVID-19 testing but the proposal presented was met with a lukewarm response.
The senior lawyer quoted the official involved with the medical facility as saying that a senior member of the Ministry of Health staff had indicated to him that if too many positive coronavirus cases were discovered in Grenada outside of the national system then that would place a severe burden on government where contact tracing is concerned.
“That was one of the reasons why they didn’t want to give a license (to the private medical facility) to do COVID-19 testing. That is what was happening,” he said.
“So he (the senior facility employee) told me don’t take their numbers – whatever they publish is a lie because they (the private lab) know for sure – because they do testing – they know that it is more (virus cases in Grenada),” he added.
According to the top lawyer, the duty of the media in Grenada in light of the revelation coming out of Trinidad within the past few hours about the discovery of the three cases coming out of Grenada “is to get the message out there that the numbers that they (Ministry of Health) are producing are fabricated numbers.”
“…If three Trinidadians go back positive from Grenada, Trinidad (will) start banning people from Grenada. We have to get the message out to our Grenadian people that they need to protect themselves because there is
community spread.
“Get that thing (information) out that these people (in the Ministry of Health) are lying, they are deceitful, they want to carry on their business and they’re luring Grenadians into a false sense of security similar to (President Donald) Trump (in the United States).
President Trump had advocated the need to slow down testing for the virus in the U.S in order to lessen on the number of positive COVID-19 cases there.
There has been swift reactions from several Grenadians on the information coming out of Trinidad about the three positive cases that came out of the Spice Isle.
A prominent Grenadian living in Trinidad expressed fears that the discovery of the three cases could result in the Keith Rowley administration in the neighbouring oil-rich republic “not opening (the border) to Intra Regional Travel anytime soon”.
One of the post on Social Media said that the evidence is now clear that “we have lots of asymptomatic Covid -19 cases in the country and we need a plan” and another said that she is not surprised because “there is nothing in place (to handle the virus) …people are assuming that the Minister (of Health) will be truthful.”
“…I believe persons here are sick and not reporting it and the Ministry is not following up on the previous cases and their travels,” she remarked.
Another of the locals who responded said: “I never believed the authorities with that (figure of 23 positive cases). They were misleading the nation with those rapid tests and deceived the nation. This is a deceptive bunch always.”
A top former NNP government minister who expressed alarm at the development said that the three new cases cast serious doubts about the COVID-19 system in place in Grenada to combat the deadly virus.
He said: “No one believes the NNP. This is not just embarrassing, the NNP regime is discredited. Anywhere you go in Grenada the people are warning you to be careful because there are COVID-19 cases around.”
In the last month, Grenada had boasted of being COVID-19 free but earlier in the week, Prime Minister Mitchell expressed concerns about an incident at Bathway beach in the north of the island where hundreds of persons were engaged in partying without wearing a mask and flouting social distancing protocols.
Health Minister Steele announced today that Grenada has now started the task of trying to trace the persons who would have been in contact with the three departing Trinidad nationals who are now in quarantine in Port-of-Spain.