The Tribune

“We have to move from ‘they should’ to “we should’. We have to move from ‘they say’ to ‘we say’.” – Prime Minister Hubert Minnis

In the last century newspapers published blank maps so that citizens could plot the path of a hurricane. Still, it was anyone’s guess where a storm was headed. Today, satellite information combined with powerful computers track the steering winds in the path of the storm and create a cone of a probable path that has proven to be increasingly accurate.

Few people, if anyone, question the likelihood of the path of the hurricane veering outside that cone of probability. Over the past hundred years we have travelled unsteadily from ignorance to the application of scientific models to deliver maps of the likely paths of impending storms to our smartphones.

After Dorian, no one questions the need to be as fully prepared as possible for the destructive power of hurricanes.

There is a reason why COVID-19 is dubbed a novel, meaning new, coronavirus. Our early knowledge of this virus was equivalent to our early knowledge of hurricane tracking 100 years ago.

Our knowledge has improved markedly over the past several months and is improving every day. Given that the last pandemic of the scale of COVID-19 was more than 100 years ago, it might be that our lack of direct experience with a pandemic explains our relatively cavalier attitude toward COVID-19.

But we now see what happens when we let our guard down. We see what happens when we forget the science that guided us when we were receiving praise from the international community.

For example, we regularly heard the expressed belief among many young people that they are either immune to or can easily recover from a COVID-19 infection.

VITAL

We now know that death is not the only negative outcome from a COVID-19 infection. Even for those young people who recover, an increasing number are showing long-term effects to their lung capacity and in other reductions in the functioning of their vital organs including their hearts.

Some recovered young people who are used to running over the Paradise Island Bridge will soon discover they can only walk over the bridge because of their impaired heart and lung functions.

Anyone who tells you that only older people need to worry about contracting COVID-19 is not telling you the full story. It is important for us to not only preserve life but to also preserve the quality of life.

We cannot let our guard down again. By letting our guard down, we compromised our health and welfare. We forestalled the properly phased reopening of our economy.

As the Prime Minister noted in his press conference this past Monday:

“Our task now is to restore our confidence in ourselves by shutting down community spread and flattening the COVID-19 curve of transmissions and infections once again, over the next several weeks.

“The only way that we can get there is by moving from ‘the government should’ to ‘we should’. We have to move from ‘they should’ to ‘we should’. We have to move from ‘they say’ to ‘we say’.

“When The Bahamas is successful, it is not the government that is being successful. It is the Bahamian people who are achieving success!”

Recent research shows The Bahamas is among the top or at the top of destinations to which North Americans wish to travel internationally and our proximity to North America further cements our advantages.

No one believes we will never get another case of COVID-19 brought into The Bahamas by a visitor. That is likely to happen.

But we need those cases to be so rare that we can immediately find the source, trace the contacts and contain the spread. The same applies to Bahamians and to our residents. There will be other cases of COVID-19 infection but our task is to make sure they are all easily identifiable and controllable.

REVIVE

For the past several decades as we gained greater certainty about the behavioUr of hurricanes, we have demonstrated how we can work together in planning for those storms. We must do the same to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent article in The Economist noted of the English-speaking Caribbean:

“Governments now face an agonizing choice. Should they keep their countries relatively closed to contain the pandemic, or open them back up to revive their economies, at the risk of spreading the virus?

“They must also watch out for the weather. Forecasters predicted that the storm season, which runs from June to November, would be unusually active. A major hurricane would make matters far worse for any island it strikes.

“Fossil-fuel-rich Trinidad & Tobago has large foreign-currency reserves. But most Caribbean countries have less to spend. Barbados, which is highly indebted, is shoring up its finances under Mia Mottley, Prime Minister since 2018 and getting help from the IMF. The Bahamas has not recovered from Hurricane Dorian, which struck last year. The IMF is helping it, too.

“Governments pray for a pickup in tourism when the peak season begins in December. But their efforts to tempt back travellers may spread disease without boosting growth much.”

There are few to no confirmed case of transmission of COVID-19 from a visitor to The Bahamas. The protocols The Bahamas had in place to protect our citizens, residents and visitors worked and worked well. Unfortunately, it is Bahamians who caused the recent surge in cases after some of them visited hotspots overseas.

It is now up to all of us to act and behave more responsibly to combat this virus and to reopen our economy and country.

In a recent letter to the editor, Athena Damianos admonished us to be more responsible individually and collectively. She also stressed:

“The media plays a big role in shaping society. Besides acting as a watchdog – so crucial to democracy – their role is to inform, educate and entertain. I don’t see too much going on in the way of educating.

“While some are doing an admirable job (kudos to them, they know who they are), too many who call themselves journalists are pushing their personal agendas instead of educating the public and playing a leading role in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“It is important and right to scrutinize, expose and question. It is NOT cool to use this very important platform to undermine public efforts to get a handle on the virus and play on the emotions of people.”

In a letter of support to the Prime Minister and the Government, Ethan Farquharson, an eight-year-old, has given us our marching orders. Ethan demonstrated a maturity, wisdom, spirit of unity and national spirit that has eluded so many of us. He reminded us of our better angels.