As they begin to prepare The Bahamas for a post-pandemic existence, notwithstanding the fact that the Free National Movement (FNM) may be long gone from office by the time some level of normalcy returns, members of the Minnis administration ought to be careful not to sell dreams to the Bahamian people as they often appear to be putting politics above science and reality.
They also have an over inflated sense of their successes to date in what has shaped up to be a protracted pandemic fight.
When he appeared on the Our TV program with our colleague Jerome Sawyer last week, the deputy prime minister, Desmond Bannister, continued the FNM’s electioneering narrative that Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis and his Cabinet have done a stellar job in leading us through these tumultuous times.
“As a result of him following the medical advice, The Bahamas is in a better position, a position where many countries envy us,” Bannister claimed. “We’ve now started opening up in a manner that is going to give Bahamians the opportunity to be able to resume their normal lives. We have a vaccination program now that’s the envy of many countries and so my Cabinet colleagues worked diligently. We worked very hard to be able to ensure that we took the medical advice …”
But even as Bannister was praising Minnis and his colleagues for a vaccination program that’s the “envy of many countries”, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) was updating data to show that The Bahamas is far from a standout country in the Americas as it regards our vaccination program.
In fact, we rank near the bottom in terms of our pace of vaccination.
According to PAHO, as of Friday, The Bahamas with a population of 396,914 had administered 39,230 first doses and 627 second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine – 10 doses per 100 people.
Bermuda with a population of 72,009 had administered 35,807 first doses and 27,986 second doses – 88.6 doses per 100 people.
Turks and Caicos Islands with a population of 57,022 had administered 19,515 first doses and 12,083 second doses – 55.41 doses per 100 people.
Barbados with a population of 287,708 had administered 75,644 first doses and 36,598 second doses – 39 doses per 100 people.
Antigua and Barbuda with a population of 98,728 had administered 31,517 first doses and 1,134 second doses – 33.1 doses per 100 people.
St. Kitts and Nevis with a population of 54,166 had administered 13,910 first doses and 2,246 second doses – 29.8 doses per 100 people.
St. Lucia with a population of 184,401 had administered 25,716 first doses and 15,775 second doses – 22.5 doses per 100 people.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines with a population of 111,269 had administered 13,181 first doses and 3,692 second doses – 15.16 doses per 100 people.
Jamaica with a population of 2,973,462 had administered 146,147 first doses and 6,999 second doses – 5.2 doses per 100 people.
Trinidad and Tobago with a population of 1,403,374 had administered 61,768 first doses and 1,179 second doses – 4.5 doses per 100 people.
Up to Friday, The Bahamas had administered fewer second dose shots than any other country in the Caribbean. Twenty other countries ranked more favorably. (This does not include Haiti, which has yet to start administering jabs).
So, what exactly is the deputy prime minister talking about here? Is he living in the Twilight Zone as one Facebook user commented under a video of him making the claim?
Even if he is referencing Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, which both had fewer doses per 100 people than The Bahamas, our record of 10 doses per 100 people is hardly anything to brag about and nothing for other nations to envy.
We have heard others in the Cabinet make the same unsubstantiated statement about other countries envying our vaccine program. They would like to believe this is the case as they struggle to support their message that our pandemic response is being led by strong, focused and competent leadership.
But facts are stubborn things.
The fact is The Bahamas’ vaccine program is not more successful to date than a majority of countries in our region.
This is not to diminish the work of the men and women who have been volunteering their services over the course of months and continue to do so to ensure that as many Bahamians as possible, who want to be vaccinated, are accommodated based on our limited supply of vaccines.
Several weeks ago, when members of our news team received the first shot after the vaccine program was opened up to media, we were impressed by the level of organization and professionalism at the various vaccine sites on New Providence.
But we are nowhere near vaccinating a majority of our adult population simply because we do not have enough doses to do so and because of persistent widespread vaccine hesitancy, which is likely being worsened by the failure of our national leadership to present a credible message to inspire more Bahamians to get the jab.
Normal
Still, the prime minister foresees The Bahamas returning to normal by August – three months from now.
Minnis made the statement in the House of Assembly on Monday while giving notice of the government’s intention to extend the 14-month-old state of emergency to August 13. Perhaps he made the statement to make the news of a further extension to his emergency powers more palatable.
The prime minister said, “It is our hope that we would not need the three months.
“It is our hope that with vaccinations aggressively and progressively moving throughout the world and continuing in The Bahamas, and with the cooperation [of] our populace following the mitigation protocols for the pandemic, that we would see a turn.
“Once that commences, we would love to remove all the emergency powers orders, so that individuals can turn back to their normal life following the new protocols and world standards as quickly as possible.
“… Once we see the turn, we would be more than happy to remove the emergency powers.”
Last week, The Bahamas received the second tranche of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which was secured through the COVAX Facility, a global initiative intended to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
That batch consisted of 33,600 doses, bringing to 87,200 the number of doses of the vaccine our country has received to date. This includes 20,000 doses received from the government of India in March.
The Bahamas is expected to receive its final tranche next month, bringing total doses to 120,000. That’s enough to vaccinate 60,000 people, around 15 percent of the total population.
The vaccine is only being administered to individuals 18 and over.
The 9th Actuarial Review of the National Insurance Board, dated December 2011, making population assumptions based on the results of the 2010 national census, projected a population for 2020 of 387,020 with 94,273 being people 15 and under and 292,747 people 16 and older.
These projections give us a general idea of the large number of the adult population for which there is no available vaccine in The Bahamas. Even after the government gets its full COVAX commitment in country, that will not be enough to vaccinate a majority of the adult population.
The fact that a low percentage of the population is vaccinated to date was one of the reasons given in the new emergency proclamation issued by the governor general on Friday.
If the government has secured more vaccines, it has not made any such announcement. No doubt, it would have already enthusiastically told the nation how its strong negotiating skills and competent leadership led to such an accomplishment.
Herd immunity
We already know that a prediction made by the lost in space minister of health in March, that we were on track to achieve herd immunity by summer was a statement that had no real basis in fact whatsoever, but it perhaps sounded good in his mind.
Wells told reporters on March 23: “Given the fact of the number of Bahamians who have already been exposed to COVID, if you do the math, it says a lot of Bahamians have already been exposed based on the fact that we are around 8,700 positives, along with our vaccination program.
“I do believe that by the time we enter the summer that The Bahamas will have … reached our desired herd immunity, which means that the country will be able to move in a more positive direction.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines herd immunity, also known as “population immunity”, as the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
WHO supports achieving herd immunity through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through any segment of the population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths.
To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population, WHO notes.
The organization stated in December, “The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known. This is an important area of research and will likely vary according to the community, the vaccine, the populations prioritized for vaccination, and other factors.”
Summer officially starts on June 20, roughly a month away. While case numbers remain concerning (there have been 11,278 total confirmed cases as of May 17), there is no indication that we will achieve herd immunity by the beginning of summer, if in fact the health minister could even clearly define what would constitute herd immunity in The Bahamas.
With 759 new cases confirmed between May 1 and May 17, the month is on track to see the highest number of cases recorded so far for the year. On May 17, the positivity rate was 26.3 percent, far above the five percent recommended by WHO to have an economy opened up.
In April, 1,262 COVID cases were confirmed – a number that far surpassed previous months in 2021.
The numbers do not support the prime minister or the minister of health’s optimism that we will soon return to normal – the vaccine supply and administration numbers do not support that; neither do the case numbers.
This is not to say that The Bahamas should be under a state of emergency indefinitely. We are all certainly anxious to move beyond COVID, but the nation’s leaders must be realistic in the statements they make to the public. Wishful thinking does not reality make. Saying it is so, does not make it so.
For months now, Attorney General Carl Bethel has been saying that the government is close to presenting a bill that would replace the constantly changing emergency order.
Almost three months ago, Bethel said in the Senate, “On the issue of the emergency orders, the government is and my drafts person has been working very hard on crafting a bill that will fill the void, if you will, between the Health Services Bill and the need for this constitutional order. The idea is that the bill, and we are in the very final stages of it, is going to be carefully crafted.
“Anything that is done must be reasonably justifiable, which is the constitutional standard for ordinary everyday conduct legislation, government actions, etc.
“… So we are very, very close to having a post-Emergency Orders Bill and that will allow the prime minister to have an advisory committee [with] opposition members, government members, medical professionals on it, to advise the minister so that in a sense the political directorate on both sides would have a say at the advisory committee level and, of course, there would be parliamentary oversight.”
No such bill has yet been presented.
For now, Minnis’ emergency powers will remain in place with no clear path to move us into this new normalcy he so optimistically forecasted.
The post A long road to a new normal appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/a-long-road-to-a-new-normal/
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