The Tribune

IF it seems to many that COVID-19 has gone away, today is a rude reminder that it is anything but.

Cases are on the rise, precautionary measures including limiting visitors at Princess Margaret Hospital are being introduced again – and then there is the fear over what is happening in China.

For a long time, China has boasted of its zero-COVID approach, clamping down to reduce the numbers of cases to an absolute minimum.

But as the world has been lifting restrictions, China has been an outlier.

The key to lifting restrictions around the world has been vaccination – but China seems to have had less confidence in its vaccines.

While other places were starting to return to normal, or as close to normal as possible, China found itself in the position where lifting those limits risked huge spikes in COVID cases as the outside world came crashing in again.

After protests over the long-running restrictions in place to prevent COVID transmission in a nation struggling to adequately vaccinate to stop the spread of the virus, the decision was made to open up.

What we have seen since then is exactly the spikes that were feared.

So do we put restrictions on travel by people from China?

Well, in that respect we are in part beneficiaries of the actions of other nations. Because those visitors would likely go through another nation first before coming here, limits being imposed by other countries have a knock-on benefit for us. In other words, if the US is already limiting travel for people from China, they have that hurdle to cross before they can come to us anyway.

Such limits are proving a political challenge in several places around the world, however – with the European Union struggling to present a united front on the matter, the United Kingdom uncertain over what action to take, and other nations taking a wait-and-see approach.

We join that list of nations monitoring what is happening rather than taking action right away.

Along with concerns over spiking numbers in China, there is also alarm at a possible new variant and whether or not it is in The Bahamas as yet.

All of this serves as a cautionary tale that we must not assume that COVID-19 has gone away yet.

As of yesterday, 18 people were in hospital with COVID, and one of those in the intensive care unit.

These numbers are not as high as they may have been earlier in the pandemic – but we don’t want them to become worse.

So be cautious and be aware that the number of cases are on the rise again. If you’ve stopped wearing a mask, perhaps pop one back on until the numbers ease again. Keep sanitising, and keep social distance where possible.

We don’t want to go back to lockdowns and hard limits – so a little caution will not go amiss. After all, we don’t want to get back into the situation China is trying to get out of.

As for our officials, we urge them to monitor cases closely indeed, and take appropriate action where necessary.

Too much intervention may be a frustration, but too little may mean life or death.