The Tribune

SO much has been written recently about the compelling need for vaccinations in face of the new surge of COVID cases in The Bahamas that I hesitate to add to the plethora of comment. But two developments encourage me to offer a few observations – the Prime Minister’s wise and appropriate national address last Wednesday and the action by the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representative threatening to arrest staffers not wearing masks in the building, with many saying this amounts to a reprehensible abuse of power.

Suggestions Dr Minnis was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea vividly portray the dilemma he faced in reacting to the sudden increase in cases. In seeking to provide the best means of protecting people’s livelihoods, welfare, health and safety, the government was faced with the undesirable option of further stifling the economy and tourism – after the devastating lockdowns of 2020 – in order to safeguard the nation’s health care services that are on the brink of being overwhelmed. But what action to take was a difficult judgement – not necessarily accepting the science must override every other consideration but weighing up the competing factors and determining what was right for the country overall.

All reports show the business sector has been telling the Prime Minister another lockdown would finally destroy the economy and finish off tourism. Some say lockdowns have anyway failed to halt the virus and, by closing up everything for a period, the can is simply being kicked down the road. Nonetheless, PAHO has warned against reopening the economy during an uptick in new virus cases and, with the history of past strict restrictions, many feared they would be tightened up again.

As we all know, however, the Prime Minister took another route. Having already made it clear a high level of vaccinations was the only way of ending the pandemic, rather than imposing new curbs he called on the public to take the vaccine in order to protect their own health and avoid possible death – not least, in the face of threatened new strains like the Delta variant. It was the case, he said, that the overwhelming majority of patients admitted to hospital were unvaccinated.

While social distancing, the wearing of masks and hand sanitising in shops, offices and public places have become the norm, he called on people to continue to follow these established routines and avoid large gatherings while restrictions on restaurants would remain – in other words to assume personal responsibility for measures to minimise the spread of the virus.

In speaking as a medical doctor of more than 40 years’ experience, he warned people not to listen to what he called “the fake news over the medical science”. In such circumstances, it is reasonable to expect most people ought to be persuaded by his strong recommendation, particularly when the dangers of remaining unvaccinated are fully explained.

It is inevitable, however, some will remain unconvinced. The challenge is to persuade them to change their minds – and, to provide for the possibility of further action if the pandemic becomes worse, presumably the government’s emergency powers will be extended again.

Judging from reactions in recent days, the Prime Minister surely hit just the right note. He is said to have struck the correct balance between health and the economy, and lives and livelihoods. While additional measures, including a slightly extended curfew, have been limited, there appears to have been a palpable and collective sigh of relief that the country has escaped another lockdown – at least for now. So, the debate about vaccines has intensified.

Amid controversy concerning the availability of enough doses for everybody, the vaccine rollout in The Bahamas – estimated at 15 percent while 80 percent of the population vaccinated is said to be the figure required for herd immunity – has been low compared with other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. The official expert medical advice is to get vaccinated because, as a preventative rather than a cure, it will stop moderate to severe symptoms and will save lives. So, to keep pockets of infection from spreading, people should take it while regular testing should also continue; and it is argued that, if they could really see for themselves the horror and damage inflicted by COVID-19, they would soon drop any objection to the jab.

Meanwhile, the medical experts confirm the chances of getting sick – for example with a blood clot – and dying from taking it are tiny compared with the mortality rate of COVID itself.

Thus, the case in favour of taking the vaccine seems now to be beyond argument. But the wider dimension of individual choice in the matter is also important in a free democratic society. People can be in favour of the vaccine but still object to any notion of the state imposing it as a mandatory requirement.

It is incumbent on government to explain the risks of refusing the jab, and it even makes sense, for the good of the country as a whole, to offer incentives to take it. But that is a far cry from the state coercing individuals about something that is intensely personal and intrusive – being forced to have a needle stuck into your arm irrespective of your medical history or condition, while you may have fears – rational or not – about a new vaccination that some say may have been developed too quickly and without adequate testing. That said, there have to be special cases and exceptions like health workers because of the possibility of unvaccinated staff spreading infection inside hospitals. Moreover, state mandates are, of course, different from individual businesses which can insist on new staff being vaccinated as a condition of taking a job since they can determine their terms of staff employment as long as their rules are within the law.

The medical experts say the risk of the virus causing someone serious illness may often depend on one’s age and state of health, including underlying conditions. Clearly, some people are more vulnerable than others and need different levels of protection. So, many consider coercive rules for all across-the-board should anyway be avoided and people should be left to make their own risk assessments. Furthermore, vulnerable people are unlikely to ignore social distancing precautions because they can be expected to have a basic sense of self-preservation.

Many believe generally in individual freedom, responsibility and accountability and are against government mandates. It is self-evident the state has a vital role to play in protecting the public’s security and safety. But in a democracy it is also a fundamental priority to protect their basic human rights and freedom to make individual decisions about something as important to them as their own health.

SECOND OLYMPICS FOR GRAND BAHAMIAN JOANNA EVANS

AS A friend of her father, Colin, I have found it interesting over the last few years to follow the success as a top-class competitor in swimming of Joanna Evans from Grand Bahama. Not surprisingly, there has been quite a lot of press coverage of this two-time Olympian who participated in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and now has been competing in the Tokyo Games.

This time, the University of Texas graduate was selected by the Bahamas Olympic Committee to carry – with veteran high-jumper Donald Thomas – the national flag at the historic opening ceremony; and this was the first time there have been two flag-bearers.

Joanna competed in her signature event, the 400 metre freestyle – as well as the 200 metre freestyle in which she set a Bahamian national record. So, although coming up short of the final, that significant achievement will surely have already earned her widespread and deserved praise by all concerned – particularly those back at home.

Over the years, there have, of course, been many famous Bahamian Olympians. To name just a few in modern times, people will surely recall the success of the “Golden Girls” who won the women’s 4x100 metre relay at the Sydney Games in 2000. It was an enormous pleasure later to meet two of them – Chandra Sturrup and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie – and, more recently, to have talks with gold medallist sprinter Pauline Davis-Thompson, an IAAF Council member, when Britain was lobbying for support to hold the IAAF’s World Championships in London in 2017.

Then, there was a memorably impressive gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics for Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown, a veteran of five Olympics, and his teammates in the men’s 4x400 metres relay – and who can forget the drama at Rio de Janeiro when Shaunae Miller- Uibo (or Shaunae Miller as she then was) threw herself over the finishing line to win gold in the women’s 400 metres, which means, of course, that she is the reigning Olympic champion in this event.

There has been so much worthy achievement and triumph on the international stage by Bahamians in the past – and, in the hope of good things to come, it’s a joy to offer Team Bahamas every good wish for the track and field events in Tokyo this week.

NEW LIGHT ON LIFE OF DUKE OF WINDSOR

WHAT a pleasant surprise it was to receive recently from a friend a nice gift in the shape of a book entitled “The Quest for Queen Mary”. The paperback edition was first published in Britain in 2018.

Edited by well-known royal biographer Hugo Vickers, it is a compilation of notes of interviews conducted by James Pope- Hennessy while preparing to write the official biography of Queen Mary, the widow of King George V and grandmother of The Queen. This work was published as long ago as 1959 and was acclaimed as one of the best royal biographies ever published. Queen Mary had died in her sleep in 1953 at the age of 85.

Pope-Hennessy apparently embarked on his task in about 1955 and his research included many interviews with various royal courts around Europe – as well as meetings with an array of retired courtiers – and he had access to private letters and documents as well. His notes were kept secret for more than 50 years and have now been published for the first time. They include a series of candid, revealing and humorous observations – together with character portraits – about royalty and members of the English aristocracy of the period. Some of these are hardly flattering and reveal the frailties and unbecoming traits of so many among those concerned.

What interested me, in particular, about this book were the many revelations and observations about the Duke of Windsor who was, of course, Queen Mary’s eldest son. He abdicated as King of England in 1936 in order to marry American divorcee, Wallis Simpson – and he later became Governor of The Bahamas for most of the Second World War.

During the course of long conversations James Pope-Hennessy had with the Duke of Windsor when visiting him and the Duchess at one of their homes in France in 1957, the author quotes him in commenting about the Abdication that “People can say what they like for or against it. I don’t care; but one thing is certain: I acted in good faith. And I was treated shabbily”.

If this is read in conjunction with the detailed account of the Abdication in his official biography by Philip Ziegler, published in 1990, some people have reached the sad conclusion that at heart the Duke of Windsor seems to have misunderstood or underestimated the enormity of his decision to abdicate. This momentous event shook both the monarchy and the country to the core and, from all the evidence, caused incalculable stress and sorrow to his family. As recorded by Pope- Hennessy, nobody among them at the time – right up to the last minute – really thought he could or would go through with it.