I really wonder how many peoole in this country have 2 eyes.

**On June 25th 2021, the Tribune editorial was entitled "*Light at the end of the tunnel*"**. The article was about homeporting and how the increase in tourists would save us. The article rejoiced that "*the Americans were coming*", encouraged us to "*welcome them with open arms*" and "*be ready for them*".

That was June 25th. The 3rd wave that started in the 2nd week of March, around spring break, was pettering out. In fact on June 28th Dr Sands said hospitalizations were going down and they were.

But **in response to the anticipated exponential increase in tourists** visiting the island **and that article's comment to "*be ready for them*", I commented:**

"***Start increasing the number of COVID beds at the hospital....***". That was 8 weeks ago. We did nothing.

To see how rapidly this situation got out of control, by June 6th, a week later and the week when Mike Maura said we had 13000 tourists visit Nassau, the PHA announced that PMH was at capacity. Hubert Minnis did nothing. He and Renward Wells refused to acknowledge that anything was happening , seemingly hoping the cases would go away on their own. It wasnt until 4 weeks later, July 29th that Hubert Minnis acknowledged that there was a problem.

Why are we surprised now? Why did we let the tourists in without testing? Why did we refuse to acknowledge the link between exponential border crossings and exponential spikes? The evidence was all there right in front of our eyes. It annoys me today that people talk about *being responsible* and *not adding to the burden at the hospital*...You should have been saying that on June 25th. Please stop kowtowing to the PR *must save tourism* messaging of the administration, without the balancing concern on virus spread. its literally killing our families.

**This current situation is NOT because of unvaccinated people its because of leaders who willfully ignored a burgeoning crisis**

I totally agree with you. The emphasis has always been on 'our tourist numbers'. In light of the fact that so many are unvaccinated and prior to last week, vaccines were not readily available, the concern should have been on how do we protect our vulnerable citizens. Tourists have been given the carte blanche to parade around our islands without entry tests for all visitors and without wearing masks. Last week, the Minister of Tourism even appeared in a photo op, greeting cruise visitors, some of whom were visibly unmasked. Shame on him and all of them who jeopardized the health of the nation for the mighty tourist dollar. Dead people cannot spend money.

to clarify, its not only tourists, its anyone crossing the border, but what we experienced in July 2020, March 2021 and July 2021 were exponential increases in tourists to the tune of tens of thousands. Those are also the 3 periods when we had equally marked increases in hospitalizations with July 2021 being the most dramatic increase in both data points

The current situation is very clearly because of unvaccinated people.
Everyone and their mothers need to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
https://imgur.com/a/7MaRY8d

Youve correctly identified a symptom of the root cause

Just this morning the US issued a statement that ITS CLEAR the effectiveness of the vaccine is waning. People on this site have been referencing evidence from European countries for weeks on that very phenomenon and been called conspiracy theorists. I guarantee we're gonna wait till we feel the negative effects of that before we take any action too.

***Repost:***

Perhaps these Minnis controlled medical doctors and senior public health officials need to visit the Ministry of Health website, click on 'health statistics', then click on 'mortality' and have a good hard look at the 2014 numbers for leading causes of death per 100,000 people in The Bahamas. The numbers were compiled by the Health Information and Research Unit of The Bahamas Department of Statistics and made available to the public in August 2017.

The leading causes of death in 2014 were as follows:

Heart disease 135 deaths per 100,000 people; Cancer 102 deaths per 100,000 people; External Causes (Accidents, Violence and Poisonings) 67 deaths per 100,000 people; Stroke 38 deaths per 100,000 people; Diabetes 30 deaths per 100,000 people.

The statistical info for leading causes of death for years after 2014 is not yet available on the Ministry of Health's website for whatever reason. But it's unlikely the rates that would be shown for the years since 2014 have gotten any better.

Over the past 18 months we've had 333 COVID-19 deaths in The Bahamas according to public health officials. Some believe that number has been skewed to the high side for political reasons, but that's a story for another day.

The 333 COVID-19 deaths so far equate to about 55 deaths per 100,000 people calculated as follows:

333 ➗ (18 ➗ 12) ✖️ (100,000 ➗ 400,000) = 55.5, where the population of The Bahamas is assumed to be about 400,000 souls.

All the scaremongering by our elected officials and their appointees is really baseless when you consider that the average person living in The Bahamas has a greater chance of dying from so many other things.

Incidentally, you have about a 133 in 100,000 chance of being raped in The Bahamas, nearly three times more than the likelihood of you dying from COVID-19.

For those of you interested in learning much more about COVID-19 and the vaccines, the latest research studies published by the Israeli government are generally regarded as the gold standard. So far, these studies support the greatest amount of ongoing T Cell and B Cell immunity being achieved through the development of natural immunity, i.e., those who have been infected and recovered from COVID-19.

And it now seems the novel experimental vaccines only provide waning protection for a period up to 8 months, with unknown potential long-term side-effects that will only become known with the passage of significant time.

Many of these medical doctors and senior public health officials singing Minnis's song for their supper continue to be a major disappointment. They, like Minnis, know full well that our entire dysfunctional and grossly under-resourced public health system was on life support long before COVID-19 came along.

well said

And my repost to your repost

***For those of you interested in learning much more about COVID-19 and the vaccines, the latest research studies published by the Israeli government are generally regarded as the gold standard*.**

Gold Standard by whom ? Not saying they don't do great research in Israel, but I wouldn't consider it Gold Standard.

***So far, these studies support the greatest amount of ongoing T Cell and B Cell immunity being achieved through the development of natural immunity, i.e., those who have been infected and recovered from COVID-19.***

You might be right about the greater natural immunity from those who have recovered from COVID, but what good is that if you DON'T recover. The vaccine's purpose is to give you a better chance of recovering.
Once again you have demonstrated your inability to think critically, because of your selfish, narcissistic nature !!

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.........

Again the CDC said just yesterday, **the evidence** shows the vaccine is losing its effectiveness