IF you’ve been waiting and waiting to get your COVID-19 vaccine, now is the time.

All adults are now eligible for the vaccine, starting from today. Book your jab and get it done.

For those who have had their first jab and have not already received an appointment for your second inoculation, you should start hearing in the next two weeks about when to book your appointment.

So far, 25,692 doses of the vaccine have been administered. So, while it is good news that any adult can now sign up for the jab, we still have a very long way to go to reach the levels of vaccination needed to reach herd immunity and push back this virus.

Getting vaccinated is a boost not just for your health, but for the economy. You only have to look over at Europe to see how they are opening their doors this summer to American tourists who are fully vaccinated. The implication is clear – if you’re fully vaccinated, you’ll be able to travel again. And for an economy such as ours, which makes a large chunk of its money out of tourism, that means people will be wanting to come here too.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis already announced last week that fully vaccinated people can travel to The Bahamas without the need for a negative COVID test from the start of May. As for us, we’ll be able to travel around the islands without a test once we’re fully vaccinated.

We should not get ahead of ourselves – that is still a small fraction of our nation that has been vaccinated so far, and perhaps we might worry about how many people have come forward for vaccinations if it is now being made available to everyone.

The time has not yet passed, however. Get signed up, get your vaccine. If you have difficulty going to one of the sites because of disability or being stuck at home, reach out to the vaccination sites and see how they can help.

Don’t delay and then find out you’ve missed your chance in this first allocation of vaccines. That permission to travel is likely going to apply to us too when we want to go abroad. Want that Florida trip? Well, be prepared, get your jab.

Fading La Playa

The whole story surrounding the La Playa property seems to be such a mess.

We bought it. That’s our money that was used to buy it for $3.5m. Did we buy it just to let it rot away?

Regardless of which government bought it, shouldn’t there be some regard for our investment?

Whether it’s Paul Wynn that it’s sold to, or another developer - or used by our cash-strapped government itself, we should do something with it rather than just let it get overgrown and broken down. At this rate, it’s going to end up the grandest mansion for homeless people on the island.

It’s a sad sign of the decay along that whole stretch of seafront. Further along is Fairview, another abandoned building but which thankfully is being kept up with impeccable grounds. When that gets sold or developed, it’ll look a lot more enticing than La Playa.

Further on again, there’s the miserable old Gaming Board building, and then the abandoned Bahamas Development Bank building. Abandoned. Decaying. Unloved. Untouched.

Those properties have value, the land has value, and that value belongs to us, the people, and their stewards, the government, ought to do something rather than nothing.

There’s a reason taxis take tourists - when we had them - as far as they could before taking roads which brought them down town. It’s a disgrace. A decades-long eyesore which nobody in authority has really grabbed hold of. This one building is a perfect example - worse still, the government owns it, has no plan for it, no money to do anything with it and yet we have a developer right next door ready to take it off our hands. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

We’d love to know. Prime Minister, we’ve asked you three times for a comment on La Playa. Don’t be so coy. Let us know what you’re going to do with it.