No more COVID location forms at airports; more rules to be relaxed- Ali

Last Updated on Sunday, 6 March 2022, 17:26 by Denis Chabrol

Ahead of the reduction of more COVID-19 measures, President Irfaan Ali on Sunday said arriving passengers at Guyana’s two international airports would no longer have to fill out COVID location forms.

He said passengers no longer needed to fill up COVID locator forms and have them stamped at the Health Desk before going to immigration, in response to complaints by passengers of long wait times whenever several flights have arrived. “We have to navigate into the future so that form is no longer needed because the immigration form captures all the information that is required on that form which means that when you come in you will be advancing straight to immigration,” he said.

On returning from Belize where the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) mid-term summit and CARICOM-SICA summit was held, Dr. Ali observed that it took as much as four minutes to process one incoming passenger.  He cited the need to reduce that time because the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) allows for the easy identification of passengers for secondary checking.

The President said government would soon make several changes towards speeding up “the full opening up of the country.”

Already, government has scrapped the curfew but the remaining COVID measures still require persons to social distance, wear masks and sanitise / wash their hands. There are also percentage limits on restaurants, bars, cinemas and swimming pools.

Most of those measures are not being followed or enforced.