Platinum Covid-19 Committee meets Restrictions tightened, extended to Feb. 15 By Vidya Gappy |25 January 2021

The Platimun Covid-19 Committee meeting on Saturday (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

The series of restrictions imposed in a bid to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in the country have been extended to February 15, 2021, in addition to new restrictive measures being added.

These, among other issues, were discussed during the Platinum Covid-19 committee meeting at State House on Saturday chaired by President Wavel Ramkalawan.

The committee collectively agreed that the coming weeks are critical in ensuring the chain of transmission is severed and stressed on the need for every citizen to take their responsibility to protect their family, their households and the country.

In a press conference after deliberations by the committee, the Public Health Commissioner, Dr Jude Gédéon, announced the additional measures, which came into force as of 8pm on Saturday, January 23, 2021. The measures will be in force until midnight February 15, 2021.

Dr Gédéon noted that “the whole command of the emergency operational centre met with the Platinum command chaired by President Ramkalawan in the presence of all the other members. The meeting, which went on for three hours, was also an opportunity for us and other key agencies and authorities present to brief the head of State on the latest information in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic and key challenges affecting their operations. We presented to the members the trend we are noticing and the effect of the measures that we are putting in place. What we have proposed as new measures of restrictions have been extensively discussed; certain new propositions were put on the table and also discussed. At the end of the day we came with the following measures in addition with other measures that are already in existence. The objectives of these reinforced measures are to cut the transmission even further. If the measures taken had been respected, we would not have had to go to the next step!”

The new measures that came into force as of Saturday January 23, 2021 are as follows:

• A fixed penalty charge will be applied for anyone who breaches the public health orders in place;
• No visits to other households will be allowed;
• Limitation of movement from 8pm to 4am, except for essential services. The roads will be patrolled by the police;
• Gathering in public places is already in the Public Health Order and people are not supposed to gather and this will be enforced;
• All shops will operate until 6pm on weekdays and 3pm during the weekends;
• Tourism establishments who fail to follow the standard procedures in place will be asked to close temporarily;
• All transportation services carrying staff will be given a maximum number of passengers they can carry and those who fail to comply will be fined;
• GOP holders will only work on their premises of work as many GOP holders are working outside their premises of work;
• Religious bodies will be held accountable for any breach on the number of funeral attendees permitted.

The new Public Health Order and full details of the new restriction measures will be published by the Ministry of Health in the coming days.

As regards to the opening of schools, Dr Gédéon noted “we are having a discussion with the Ministry of Education as from early next week to discuss the safest time before the opening of the schools, how it will happen and how we will proceed with the opening. Will it be on February 28 or later, but the decision has been taken that as from next week all day care operators, teachers, child minders will receive the first dose of the vaccine, so that by mid-February, they will be eligible for the second dose. And we hope that by then most of the schools will be ready for re-opening”.

Dr Gédéon noted that all the measures will be made available by the Attorney General’s office but the fact that there has been a public declaration, they are already law.

Has the new variant of the virus come to Seychelles? With the number of transmission happening in Seychelles, we wanted to know if the new variant has arrived in Seychelles. Dr Gédéon explained that during the Platinum meeting, members were updated about this situation.

“Currently we do not know if the variant has come to Seychelles and samples have been collected to be sent to laboratories in the UAE and South Africa. What is clear with this variant is that it does not make you more sick but it has the ability to transmit faster. Right now we do not know if we have it in Seychelles or not. We need to wait for the report from the analysis.”

The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Sebastian Pillay, attended the meeting for the first time and in an interview to the press after, he clearly stated that “attending this kind of meeting already puts me in a difficult position. As leader of the opposition, many times I have to raise some concerns vis-à-vis decisions that are being taken. At the same time, the country is in a difficult state and it requires that we take an approach where when we can bring some contributions we have to do in a positive and clear way. As you are all aware, my party is pushing for a lockdown but this will not happen. But when we look at the more restricted measures that have been announced, we will have more control. Mr Pillay also noted that “we have always said that the transmission of the virus is through human interactions and we highly recommended the restrictions of interactions and I proposed that to the committee today. I cannot say that I am fully satisfied with all the measures announced but at least they are a step further in the same direction we all want to go and if we all agree to restrict movement and make people stay at home, we will achieve the goal. It is also important to note that taking the vaccine does not mean letting down your guard.

Also present at State House for the meeting was Vice-President Ahmed Afif; the Designated Minister and Minister for Fisheries and the Blue Economy, Jean-François Ferrari; the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Sylvestre Radegonde; the Minister for Health, Peggy Vidot; the Minister for Internal Affairs, Roy Fonseka; the Minister for Finance, Naadir Hassan; the Minister for Community Development, Rose-Marie Hoareau; the Commissioner of Police, Kishnan Labonte; the Attorney General, Frank Ally; the principal secretary for Health, Dr Bernard Valentin; the chief executive of the Health Care Agency, Dr Danny Louange; SPDF Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), Col. Michael Rosette; SPDF Chief of Staff. Col. Simon Dine; the principal secretary of DRDM, Paul Labaleine; the senior policy adviser in the Ministry of Health, Dr Conrad Shamlaye; Deputy Commissioners of Police, Romano Songore, and Ted Barbe.