The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

BISHOP Simeon Hall has made a plea from his hospital bed for Bahamians to take COVID-19 seriously after he contracted the disease.

The co-chair of the Bahamas National Commission on Marijuana said he went to the hospital last Friday to be seen for some other ailment and was told he had caught the coronavirus.

“By now you might have heard that I am very ill in hospital,” Bishop Hall, pastor emeritus at New Covenant Baptist Church, said in a voice note released yesterday. “I came in hospital to check on something else, only to be told that I had also contracted the COVID virus.

“I thought to call on the body of Christ to pray for me. Pray that the Lord will lift me up and I will stand in the congregation of the Lord one more time, but also I want to use this occasion to call on Bahamians everywhere to let us take this thing more seriously. Let each Bahamian make a personal effort to bring an end to this disease.”

Bishop Hall, in a later interview with The Tribune, said he had always been careful to practice social distancing and that he never went anywhere without a mask.

“I’ve been here in hospital since Friday,” Bishop Hall told this newspaper. “I had no cold and no symptoms. It’s amazing. So far, the worse thing right now is that I am very weak in my legs. Other than that, I feel like I can preach a sermon right now. I know that I am ill, so I have to go by what the doctors are saying. And, I really want to call on every Bahamian to take this seriously and to do their best not to play with this and at the end we can go forward.”

The 73-year-old pastor said every Bahamian should take on the fight against COVID-19 as a personal crusade.

“I was always very careful, but I contracted the virus and so it is not a matter of trying to avoid it. I call on all Bahamians to take this as a personal crusade to beat this demon and like other countries have done, let us seek to ameliorate this crisis.”

Bishop Hall thanked the doctors, who he said are doing a marvellous job, and he also thanked those who kept him in their prayers.

The country now has more than 5,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the bulk of which have been recorded in New Providence.