A Case for Why Police Need the COVID List

Michael Peyrefitte

Confidentiality aside, the Minister of National Security, who doubles as the Attorney General, also argues that persons who refuse to remain in quarantine or self-isolation are, more often than not, reported to law enforcement authorities.  He maintains that the police department is contacted regularly with reports of sightings of persons in open defiance of the Quarantine Act and that officers ought to be furnished with the names and identities of these individuals to effect their arrest.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

The law says that under the current act, the Minister of Health has the right to pass any law that he deems fit, is necessary to tackle any pandemic that we may be faced with.  The Minister of Health signed an S.I. deciding that the DHS shall provide to the Minister of National Security the names of those who have tested positive and who are in quarantine and the names of those who are in quarantine.  I believe that the Ministry of National Security should have the names.  Why?  Because we have to make sure that people are protected within the country.  Look, we have in the Ministry of National Security a lot more information that’s far more sensitive and private than just whether or not you’re COVID positive you know.  So I really don’t see the issue at all.  People are disrespectful of the law and people often disrespect the very same Director of Health Services and the Ministry of Health.  They tell people to quarantine in a home, those people tend to not stay in their homes.  Those people tend to say, “Screw the Ministry of Health.  We will come out, do what we want, we will get on public transportation even though the Ministry of Health tells them that they are to quarantine at home or to stay at home because they may be COVID positive.  When these people escape or they wander away from where they’re supposed to be, the Ministry of Health, who do you think they call for assistance to detain those people and take them back to where they belong?  Who do you think they call?  You think they call a nurse or a doctor?  They call the police, they call the B.D.F., they call the coastguard.”