– hundreds more to return home in a matter of days

OVER 1,300 Guyanese have returned home as part of government’s repatriation exercise, which is geared at ensuring that Guyanese, who are stranded abroad due to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, return home.

Guyana had closed its international airports to prevent imported cases of COVID-19, but mounting requests from Guyanese, who were stranded abroad, prompted government to make an exception for persons to return home.

The repatriation exercise officially commenced on June 6, 2020, when some 129 Guyanese returned home from Miami. Since then, persons have returned from St. Maarten, Aruba, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and New York.

Persons, however, had to observe strict guidelines before and after returning to Guyana, said Chairman of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) Larry London during a virtual press briefing, on Saturday.

“The National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) has sent out specific guidelines for repatriated persons…they must have successfully completed the PCR test, with result showing negative… persons being brought back must have gone through the process where doctors from the Ministry of Public Health are satisfied with the documents which were presented,” said London.

He said persons are aware that, upon their return to Guyana, they have to be quarantined for seven days either at their residence or in an institution identified by the Ministry of Public Health.

At the beginning of the repatriation exercise, health authorities had reported that there were issues regarding the failure of repatriated Guyanese to provide accurate information or co-operate with health officials. But, London assured that this issue has been dealt with and the exercise will continue.

Speaking about the continuation of the exercise, he said over 100 Guyanese will be returning home from Toronto, Canada on July 9, 2020 and persons will be returning to Canada, on the same day.

Additionally, Guyanese citizens in Miami and New York will return on July 14 and 15, respectively. There will also be more flights from Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
London, however, advised that persons need to be weary of which commercial carrier they are purchasing tickets from because special permission was granted for WestJet and Eastern Airlines to bring home repatriating Guyanese from Toronto and the United States of America, respectively.

There were reports that persons have purchased tickets from American Airlines and JetBlue, but London said permission has not been granted to those carriers.

“If you purchased tickets from any other airline you should ask for your money back… If you are invited to buy tickets on any carrier I want you to know that they are not coming because they have not been approved to come,” he advised.

In response to questions about whether the international airports will be re-opened soon, London said the GCAA decided to postpone its phased re-opening of those facilities because of the spike in cases in North America and other countries.

The NCTF had announced a six-phase re-opening of Guyana commencing with Phase 1 starting June 18 and lasting until July 2. London said phase one has been extended until further notice.