Thursday, June 4, 2020
• The full version of this story can be read HERE
Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced on Thursday that the weekend lockdowns due to COVID-19 will be lifted on June 13th – next weekend. However, the 9pm-5am curfew will continue, Monday to Sunday.
Confirming that the nation has started to enter Phase 4 of its reopening, Dr Minnis said success depends on each of us wearing our masks, practicing physical distancing and washing our hands.
Also from the Prime Minister’s address:
Starting on Monday, 8th June –
• Beach and park restrictions will be lifted on Eleuthera, Harbour Island, Exuma and San Salvador. However, they will remain closed on New Providence, Grand Bahama, Bimini and Paradise Island.
• Exercise is permitted 5am to 9pm beyond one’s immediate neighbourhood every day of the week. You may continue to exercise with your immediate family, however group exercise and sporting activities and events are still restricted.
• All professional services and commercial activity may resume regular operating hours but must be closed by 7pm daily. This does not include restaurants, bars, hair salons, barbers, cinemas, gyms and cultural and entertainment facilities, which are to remain closed.
• Places of worship may resume office hours. Fishing is allowed with more than two people in a vessel with distancing, hygiene measures and masks required.
Starting on Friday, June 12th –
• Restaurants may reopen with outdoor seating only – including the Fish Fry and Potter’s Cay. From June 15 hair salons and barber shops may reopen. All salons, spas and parlors must produce a business license, deep clean their premises and put protection measures in place. Hairdressers and cosmetologists will have to complete a training course on restricting the spread of COVID-19 which can be conducted online.
• National examinations will start on July 13. Minister of Education Jeff Lloyd will reveal the details in Parliament.
• Returning Bahamians and residents will no longer be required to quarantine on their return home. They will be monitored as necessary.
• The Office of the Prime Minister received more than 2,700 suggestions from the public through the suggestions platform on its website.
• Dr Minnis thanked the national COVID Coordinating Committee, saying their work is coming to an end and “we owe them our gratitude”.
• Dr Merceline Dahl-Regis reported that there are no new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today. The total remains at 102 with 55 recovered cases and 36 active.
Comments
moncurcool says...
Only 1 question - Did the PM take the advice of Brent Symonette and take questions from the media? Or did he still run from taking questions? And don't tell me anything about interview with ZNS cause they don't know how to ask hard questions to the very people who pay their salaries. Talk about conflict of interest.
Posted 4 June 2020, 6:20 p.m. Suggest removal
ThisIsOurs says...
They have a tendency not to answer what was asked
Posted 4 June 2020, 8:06 p.m. Suggest removal
joeblow says...
... even more pressing is what is the PM using as a basis to make these potentially life threatening decisions? Surely is not antibody testing or any other rational tool!
Posted 4 June 2020, 8:18 p.m. Suggest removal
mandela says...
In the report, it does not say WHEN THE BEACHES IN NEW PROVIDENCE WILL BE OPEN all I can personally say if I see ANY FOREIGNER ON OUR BEACHES SWIMMING AND ENJOYING our beaches before the Competent Authority says BAHAMIANS can enjoy their beaches then they will have to arrest me cause if they (foreigners) can enjoy my beaches so can I.
Posted 4 June 2020, 6:43 p.m. Suggest removal
RealTalk says...
PM Minnis why you always look so handsome and clean with a low hair cut. Please open the barbershop effective Monday. I want to look handsome too yanno
The BJC and BGCSE results will be the worst the country has ever seen. As a matter of fact, I can guarantee a decent percentage will opt not to take the exams due to the fact that they have already 'graduated'. You can't take them out of school for 4 months and expect them to produce quality results. But we care more about meeting deadlines than improving our national grade average which is a 'D'.
Posted 4 June 2020, 6:56 p.m. Suggest removal
joeblow says...
The basis of this wonderful advice is that COVID is only spread in the night hours Mr. PM and not during the day when people are in stores, inside gas stations and other places of business? If you say the country is ready to open up to outsiders, why have any curfews at all at this point?
Why no antibody testing Mr. PM? How can we know how vulnerable we are to the inevitable second wave of COVID in Nassau and a first wave in most of the family islands? What measures does the gov't have in place to deal with COVID in San Salvador for instance? Do you guys think or do you just act and hope for the best?
Posted 4 June 2020, 7:05 p.m. Suggest removal
enough says...
Sooo you are telling me we had the kids locked away for 3 months because of a pandemic, most schools had planned to end next week. And poof now we are going to tell them "hey in less than a month you now have to go in a room full or your peers, although we still are not certain how this will play out and take an exam."
UK cancelled all national exams more than a month ago, GCSEs, etc. There is enough going on right now that adults have to contend with let these children be, they have been affected as well.
Posted 4 June 2020, 7:13 p.m. Suggest removal
TalRussell says...
**Isn't tomorrow June 5, when the moon goin' be full**.... not a smart idea allow comrade Mr. Minnis be experiencing new thoughts on such a night to be **aimed at the forced constabulary patrolled and enforced confinement of colony's PopoulacesOrdinary At Large POAT,** whilst the tourists, visitors, and resident foreigners permitted to roam about leisurely, and they're also allowed to freely engage in sexual acts with a visiting non-spousal but not the POAT. Nod once for Yeah, twice for no?
Posted 4 June 2020, 7:15 p.m. Suggest removal
DDK says...
Good show! Good thing (on the whole ). However, this great, wonderful global world has many, many pitfalls....... Trust there is no State Dept. rush to
allow all of the elements from which we have so asidiously protected ourselves at such great costs, descend upon us like the plague (pun fully intended).
Posted 4 June 2020, 7:24 p.m. Suggest removal
JokeyJack says...
"Duvalier gone !!! We Free !!!!! We Free !!!!!!!"
Posted 5 June 2020, 8:58 p.m. Suggest removal
The_Oracle says...
No testing for domestic flights/travel because,
we don't have enough test kits or swabs.
No testing for international arrivals because,
We don't have enough test kits and
tourists ain't gonna go test themselves to come here.
Posted 6 June 2020, 10 p.m. Suggest removal
Giordano says...
We need to face serious disparities between law abiding citizens and those who are not, like those drinkers who are currently owning public corners usually beside a very nearby a liquor store which by the way,in most of cases are own by a retired or not police officer also violating the curfew as well as their clients which also exhibit improper behavior by urinating in open public spaces and breaking and stealing part of the body of cars parked nearby, in comp!eye disregard of decency , respect and others people dignity who live and walk around witnessing these types of unfortunate circumstances and scenarios which are ignored by the RBPF and their visible and invisible police patrolling program.
The government actions and decisions unfortunately are not matching the needs of the nation.
Public Safety is a long standing stationary problem, waiting to be solved, government after government eventhough all of them had previously promised , in campaign as a compromise just to win a general election.
The Bahamian Government is in flagrant disregard of legitimate duties by neglecting the needs of the people who elected them to solve problems and not to create problems like endebting the nation in exchange of nothing but in the benefits of their own Personal game without any whatsoever liabilities., with the complicity and impunity of so many including all the Kami-Uniform /law enforcers related officers who aline themselves with the PlEDGE CREATED by an elected current Prime Minister rather than aligning with THE NATIONAL PLEDGE., which go first or before any other pledge.
Posted 7 June 2020, 4:49 a.m. Suggest removal
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