AG Warns that Increasing COVID-19 Cases Could Mean Restrictive Measures

Michael Peyrefitte

The Prime Minister says that consultations will be held on which measures can be taken and where to contain the virus. The Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte spoke with the press this afternoon prior to these new pronouncements but he told reporters that new developments may result in the implementation of the new measures.  Peyrefitte says that they don’t want to institute quarantine but if they must do so they will.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“The very next step is to see exactly who turns out to be positive and to try and asses and analyze where these persons have been, who they may have come in contact with and then who those persons they were in contact have been in contact with. It is a real tangled web when you start look on the map tracing. So, we are very concerned as to the results so far and when we get back more results I think today which are the ones from San Pedro. And then we would really have to come up with a plan where we go from there specifically to try to prevent the spread of the disease and see how much we can arrest it. Hopefully, we don’t have to go into any quarantine or state of emergency for any part of the country or whole of the country, but if we have to we will. Hopefully we don’t have to go back to putting curfew and restricting people’s movements and restricting the opening of businesses but if we have to we will. So, by the end of the day we should know exactly where we are going and the plans we have to put in place and we go from there.”

Andrea Polanco

“AG, if we don’t see another state of emergency, can the public expect or from your recommendation would you make suggestions for perhaps a scaling down of mass gatherings. We still have a lot of these big events happening?”

Michael Peyrefitte

“Indeed. When you look at most of these events people are not wearing masks and in certain circumstances it is hard to social distance. People don’t protect themselves the way they should and it is very unfortunate. I think that because we did such a good job holding it down, instead of people saying we all did a good job of preventing it at first and they are confusing that with the fact there is no COVID here. No, we didn’t get the cases that most countries get because we were doing a good job of it – all of us, not just the government but the people. But we have become more and more slack and as we become more slack we become more exposed.”