As he moved a Motion in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, seeking to extend the current State of Emergency until November, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley told the Parliament that government would be open to suspending the SoE ahead of time, if cases improve and health officials advise it is safe to do so. 

“At the first opportunity that is medically safe and encouraged, this government will discontinue this emergency, even if Parliament today approves a 90 day extension. At the  first opportunity where it is reasonable to do so without exposing the population, I give the country the assurance that we will end it right then and there,” Dr. Rowley said in his opening contribution to the debate. 

At this time, though, with the present rate of infections and critically ill patients, the Prime Minister said ending the emergency would be premature, and could trigger after hours celebrations that could lead to a spike in new cases.

“Where we are is a dangerous place; we could easily, by our slackness or by or misbehavior, we could easily end up with a sudden increase as we had in May/June- and that could lead us to doing what we had to do before and that is the last thing we want, Madame Speaker,” Dr. Rowley said.