Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh (Terrence Deyalsingh),

The airline and the check-in counter have a joint responsibility to ensure that the PCR results or any other documents owned by the passenger are actually valid-and this did not happen in the specific case involving passengers in Omicron in New York.

The Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh expressed this when answering the opposition party's inquiry on the status of the first Omicron case of T&T in Parliament yesterday.

This involved a woman who set off from New York, tested positive by PCR, and then traveled to Panama, where she tested negative for antigen. The port health officer noticed the positive test here.

Deyalsingh stated that the person boarded the plane in New York on December 9.

He said: "To understand what happened, we must explain how the T&T Travel Pass works. All people who use T&T Pass must answer the questionnaire as truthfully as possible. To support these true answers, individuals should upload their files to support And verify their answers."

"At the airline check-in counter, the airline should carefully check the hard copy of the embarkation location in New York or anywhere else, and they should also check the disembarkation location, just like what happened in Piarco."

"There are two further checks and balances to verify the uploaded information. The final checks and balances were carried out at Piarco Airport, which was carried out where officials pointed out that the PCR test was actually a positive test result," He added.

Deyalsingh praised the port health officials for their diligent task.

"In the past few months, they have been the subject of passenger abuse. They must be congratulated. It was Piarco's last inspection and balance that solved this particular problem."

He said that airlines and check-in counters are jointly responsible for ensuring that PCR or other documents are valid, not the Ministry of Health.

Roodal Moonilal of UNC asked about the identity of the airline responsible for the incident.

Deyalsingh said that it is currently under investigation.

"Between the Immigration Department and the Civil Aviation Administration, they will conduct identification and conduct necessary investigations. At the moment I don't know the name of this airline," he said.

Munilal announced: "Mr. Minister of Health! You mean that five days have passed, and the airline's identity can not be found on the boarding pass of the passenger you identified?!"

Deyalsingh said: "Part of the journey also took place in Panama, so it's not five days."

He added: “Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of the Minister of Health to do this, but the responsibility of the airlines-the questions raised by (Moonilal) are not surprising to me, they have been trying to undermine all aspects of the government’s response to COVID from the first day. Start!"

"Determining boarding passes is not the responsibility of the Minister of Health. Port Health has done their due diligence. The relevant information has been transferred to the relevant authorities, including the Civil Aviation Administration and the Immigration Department. We have done our part in our teamwork!"

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