The Tribune

AS the nightmare of the extended lockdown now continues for another month it is amazing to watch - not least in the US and UK - how know-alls purporting to be experts attack their own governments when, more often than not, they have no relevant professional qualifications and little understanding of the pressures facing ministers.

Contrastingly, it appears most people here - in abiding by the new restrictions on movement - accept their political leaders are listening to expert scientific and medical advice and are trying to do their best in the extraordinary conditions of an unprecedented emergency, now being called a once-in-a-century global health crisis.

All that said, however, in a democracy governments should be held to account by a vigorous press. It is incumbent on any government both to listen to the people and to tell them the truth about what is going on. The task of journalism is to probe, uncover, challenge and, where necessary, to disagree – and this is all the more important during the current crisis.

In the digital age of social media, with its rumours and exchange of unverified information, there is a public craving for reliable, edited, evidence-based news so it is unsurprising the reading of national newspapers, particularly online, is on the increase.

One recent example of the danger of fake news was a claim on WhatsApp that the Bahamas government plans to stop bank withdrawals and that there was an imminent prospect of a currency devaluation. This led to a strong statement last week by the Ministry of Finance on its Facebook page declaring such claims to be “categorically false”. So that was the end of it, but the incident underlined the importance of sticking to reliable sources of information.

In this column I aim to offer views on a variety of issues, but it also provides an opportunity to articulate the opinions of others gleaned from various conversations. This can continue even during the lockdown because, despite being deprived of the pleasure of chats with friends in social settings, one can keep in touch through emails and telephone calls.

So, I hasten to report what most people must surely be aware of by now; namely, that there is a widespread feeling, growing by the day, that the government must start reopening the economy - selectively and progressively - without further delay as long as social distancing measures can be applied.

People are questioning the current inflexibility in sticking to stringent curfew and lockdown conditions because they perceive that ministers are giving too much weight to the need to protect public health while not fully appreciating the likely disastrous impact on the nation’s economy that could result in the loss of even more lives. They point, for example, to published remarks by health officials that it will only be safe to ease up on the restrictions when the rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases goes down. But that is misleading since other considerations must surely be taken into account.

The government is obliged to act cautiously in trying to prevent any spread of the virus, but at the same time it cannot allow the economy to collapse. So this requires some innovative thinking.

Political leadership is a tough task. Under unrelenting public scrutiny, it is about exercising power with care and imagination while making informed choices for the benefit of the country as a whole. When considering matters sufficiently important to merit discussion by the Cabinet, ministers are invariably faced with competing choices, demands and priorities, and members of the public look to them to exercise sound and rational judgment in reaching decisions.

Without rehearsing the economic arguments again, the recent announcement involving auto parts, hardware and home stores, plant nurseries and property maintenance, including swimming pools, was welcome. But what about others like stationery and book stores which should be able to apply social distancing rules - and it is hard to understand the reason for keeping liquor stores closed when they could operate on the same basis as food stores with a limit on the number of people allowed in at any one time. Can fears about excessive alcohol consumption and consequent anti-social behaviour during the crisis really be justified when reopening these stores would be an easy way to circulate some more money in a moribund economy?

Meanwhile, at such a critical time, it is both alarming and hard to understand why there should be fresh conflict between the government and a business community that creates the nation’s wealth. Economists always point out that governments have no money so need the revenue from taxes levied on their citizenry and businesses in order to supply essential services. It is, therefore, in the interests of a government to have a strong, well-disposed and flourishing business sector which pays its taxes.

It was interesting to read the demands of the business community set out in a letter in The Tribune on April 24 in response to criticism from the Prime Minister. In a country where the ease of doing business is all too often a serious impediment, one can only hope that proper consideration will be given to these demands.

Greater transparency would help win over the public

Returning to the need for greater official transparency, more and more people are complaining about the lack of clarity in relation to the official handling of the crisis in The Bahamas.

Most importantly, they are asking on what basis decisions are being made about extending the lockdown, and they are demanding the Government should be more forthcoming in explaining its reaction to the virus crisis and in keeping the public informed. They want to know the rationale behind relaxing certain restrictions but not others – and, on a point of detail, in assessing the potential spread of the virus whether use is being made of the ‘reproduction number’ process that is employed in other countries to determine how many new cases an infected person may generate?

Many will welcome the launching by the Office of the Prime Minister of a ‘suggestions platform’ related to the national response. But, with a lack of clarity about the Government’s own actions, there is a growing demand for publication of an exit strategy. This is important because the hard truth is no one can wait until a vaccine becomes available- which could be many months away - before resuming some sort of economic activity.

Although the crisis is hitting countries in different ways because of varying circumstances, might we not benefit from the experience of others? For example, in Britain, which has now suffered more than 20,000 deaths, they are working on the basis that even after the lockdown has been lifted there will have to be new rules about social distancing, at least for the foreseeable future.

The UK government has established five tests to be met before the restrictions can be lifted – namely, making sure the National Health Service can cope; a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rate; a decrease of the rate of infection to manageable levels; a good level of testing and supply of personal protective equipment for medical staff; and being confident there is no risk of a second peak of the virus.

In Scotland, the ruling Scottish National Party has gone a step further and published a type of exit strategy. Its main elements are that (a) restrictions will be eased partially and gradually; (b) social distancing measures will have to be maintained until an effective vaccine or treatment of the disease can be developed; (c) testing, contact-tracing and isolation will be at the heart of the continuing strategy; (d) there should be a partial reopening of schools to allow pupils to attend on alternate weeks together with some redesigning (in work places as well) to enable people to remain two metres apart; (e) reopening of parks and public gatherings will be at the back of the queue; (f) there should be tighter border controls affecting travellers; and, finally, (g) restrictions should be lifted more readily in rural and remote areas.

I wonder whether officials will be able to glean something from all this that might help in tackling the deadly COVID-19 virus here at home.

All part of the language now

To people in Britain, it is beyond argument that the Oxford English Dictionary is the best in the world. They recognise the merits of Webster’s American English dictionary but support the OED’s own claim – with its more than 600,000 words – to be the principal historical dictionary and definitive record of the English language. So, using the OED since schooldays, people regard it as the ultimate authority and the real deal; and of course for writers it is the faithful sanctuary of accuracy when they are searching for the right word or their spelling lets them down and they cannot trust the doubtful benefits of computer spell checks.

Meanwhile, the OED itself recognises that the English language is forever changing, growing and evolving to reflect society because social change often brings with it linguistic change. New words, terms, phrases and expressions come into circulation all the time and are considered for inclusion in dictionaries against specific criteria as part of a careful and deliberate process. But relatively few of them make it into the modern dictionary even though they might be used in day-to-day conversation, either because they fall out of favour or they lack staying power for some other reason and disappear. But in an interconnected world new terms appear at breakneck speed.

The reader will no doubt guess where this is leading – coronavirus, of course. The glossary of COVID-19 terms is expanding. In itself it is a simple shorthand as a shortened form of Coronavirus Disease 2019.

But our vocabulary is now also littered with words like asymptomatic, super-spreader, droplets and elbow bumps together with flattening the curve, social distancing, self-quarantine and isolation, testing and contact-tracing, not to mention the word ‘covidiot’ used in the UK to describe a person who refuses to comply with the new restrictions and indulges in stupid action that thereby puts others at risk.

In the circumstances, it was almost inevitable some of these terms would be fast tracked for inclusion in the OED. According to its website, OED editors are continually monitoring linguistic developments and it issues a quarterly update, but in exceptional circumstances will publish special updates as well; and, reportedly, it has done this in relation to the pandemic.

Whether we like it or not - in the midst of so much loss of life from the disease and widespread heart-rending grief - the deadly, terrible coronavirus, which has wreaked so much havoc around the world and has still not been contained, now has a permanent place in the English language