The Tribune

• Extend COVID relaxation to all businesses

• Not only hotels running into tourist ‘resistance’

• Roberts warns: China outbreak merits caution

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Federation of Retailers’ co-chair yesterday urged the Government to ease the COVID mask mandate for all businesses, not just hotels, given the “resistance” mounted by tourists.

Tara Morley told Tribune Business the requirement to wear masks in The Bahamas had become “a boiling point” issue for many visitors, especially Americans who comprise 90 percent of this country’s tourist market, given that this is no longer required under federal or state law back home.

She added that she had personally witnessed tourists decline to enter her Cole’s of Nassau outlet in downtown Nassau, and other prime locations, due to mask-related “frustration” and called on the Davis administration to broaden the relaxation beyond a hotel industry that had lobbied heavily for such a move.

With The Bahamas’ new and active COVID-19 cases having fallen to negligible levels, Ms Morley told this newspaper: “One thing we would like to see is the easing of mask restrictions get extended to all businesses and not just the hotels.

“I just think that, with the tourism market and COVID-19 numbers where they are, being lower, we do get resistance from tourists downtown and at other locations who don’t understand why they have to wear masks any more when the mask mandate has fully fallen away in the US, which is our main source market.

“Unfortunately, people have just reached a boiling point and will not wear them any more. They will not come into the shop because they are being frustrated by it. It is what it is,” Ms Morley added.

“We obviously enforce the policy strictly, but it would definitely be beneficial where, if the Government is going to consider doing it for businesses such as hotels, making the same consideration for local businesses because we are all receiving the same push back at the end of the day.”

The Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) has for some weeks been pushing for a relaxation of the COVID-19 mask mandate across all resort properties and their associated amenities, including restaurants, on the grounds that they were receiving significant resistance to, and complaints about, the protocol from guests - 90 percent-plus of whom are fully vaccinated.

The Government did not go quite as far as the major resorts wanted, though, as the ease did not extend to restaurants and all amenities. The Ministry of Health and Wellness, in a statement, said: “A person is not required to wear a face mask while in a lobby, corridor, or casino of a hotel or while in an outdoor setting where there is at least three feet of space between persons who are not of the same household.”

Ms Morley acknowledged that extending the mask mandate ease to all Bahamas-based businesses would require further discussions with the ministry, while depending on local COVID-19 case numbers remaining low. Figures for last Friday, the last to be released, placed fresh COVID cases nationwide at just four and total active cases at just 101.

And just 11 persons remain in hospital with the virus, only two of whom are still in intensive care. “We have noticed, with our employees, a massive reduction of COVID-19 cases in the retail sector so we can only imagine it has broader implications across the nation,” Ms Morley added.

“Things are getting better and we are reaching a more manageable place. Hopefully we keep moving forwards to more liberalised COVID conditions.” She suggested that restaurants, as well as retailers, were likely to have experienced “push back” from visitors unable to understand “why we are so reluctant down here” to ease the pandemic-related mask mandate.

Dr Duane Sands, former minister of health and now-FNM chairman, on Monday branded the decision to ease the mask mandate for hotels and their overseas visitors, but not businesses outside that sector and/or focused on the local economy, as “glaringly discriminatory”.

Questioning the medical and scientific rationale underpinning such a decision, Dr Sands said: “We find it very interesting that the virus behaves differently in hotels and casinos than [it does] in Bahamian businesses, but most importantly we have been asking for the data that undergirds these decisions and to-date they have not been forthcoming.”

Ms Morley, meanwhile, said retailers were “cautiously optimistic” that the worst of the worldwide COVID pandemic may be over. “We’re certainly pleased with the progress that we have made, and are so happy to see the cruise ships back and are noticing an uptick in tourists across the board, whereas we had a disrupted season over December, January and February, which has been the high season,” she added.

This was due to COVID’s Omicron variant, which surged rapidly throughout The Bahamas and other key source markets such as the US. “Hopefully there’s no further outbreak,” Ms Morley added. “We’re happy to see the COVID numbers going down.”

Other retailers, though, were yesterday more cautious when it came to relaxing mask wearing and other COVID protocols. Rupert Roberts, Super Value’s president, told Tribune Business that doctors he had consulted suggested masks “are still important, in their opinion” to combating the virus’ spread.

“This is breaking out again in China and other countries, so we still have to be cautious,” Mr Roberts argued. “We could be very sorry. We cannot go back and do it over again. If we attract a surge, and it’s still raging in other countries, so let’s just be careful and maintain the protocols if we can.”

Both Ms Morley and Mr Roberts agreed that the decision to slash social distancing by 50 percent, from six feet to three feet, would have little practical impact for retail businesses and their ability to accommodate customers as the long queues outside stores that were seen at COVID’s start have since largely disappeared.

“I think people have been managing really well with the capacity constraints, especially with everything open,” the Retail Federation co-chair said. “It’s not like we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people coming into small open spaces. I don’t think it will be too different. It’s not like we have any long lines outside retail stores per se.”

“Business establishments shall ensure that all customers and staff maintain physical distancing between themselves and others of not less than three feet while inside or awaiting entry outside the business,” the Ministry of Health and Wellness said of the changes.

“Businesses shall determine the number of persons permitted entry into the business at any one time based on one person for every 30 square feet of floor space which is unoccupied by furnishings, fixtures or machinery and is accessible to the public.

“Businesses must have distance markers three feet apart, indicating where each customer is to stand on a line awaiting entry or check out...... All restaurants shall ensure that seating is arranged so that there is the spacing of at least three feet between each dining party.”