THE surge in COVID-19 cases is hitting our health services hard.

Nurses who were already struggling with working conditions they call “poor” are finding themselves overwhelmed as the number of cases keeps going up, and up, and up.

Princess Margaret Hospital has taken action by suspending elective surgeries and only dealing with emergency cases for now in response to the surge.

Nursing union chief Amancha Williams said they are seeing both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients being treated – in response to Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis’ suggestion that the pandemic was over for the vaccinated.

However, Princess Margaret Hospital says that the “overwhelming majority” of patients being admitted are unvaccinated.

The vaccine plays a crucial part in how we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

If we look at it objectively, our health services are being overwhelmed by the surge in cases – and the vast majority of those are people who haven’t had the jab. How, then, do we convince people to take the vaccine?

Infectious disease expert Dr Nikkiah Forbes pointed out where we need to get to. She said: “Our aim is to get to herd immunity, which is upward of 80 percent of the population. So, we do need to strategise and make that a priority.”

So how do we get there if people won’t willingly go and get the vaccine?

Part of the issue is supply, and we’re glad to see nearly another 3,500 doses arrive yesterday of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. That will keep things ticking over.

But after that, what? If we have enough vaccine in the country for every man, woman and child, what do we do if people simply decide not to take the vaccine?

That’s the next step we need to hear about from government. What will be the carrot to encourage people? What will be the stick to urge them along?

Businesses too will have questions about how to operate if staff members refuse to get the vaccination. Does the business need to continue bearing the cost of ongoing tests for workers who could have had a jab for free instead? The law says workers can’t be required to pay for such tests – so will that lead to the vaccinated being hired and the unvaccinated being fired?

There are some who are advised medically not to get the vaccine – and their rights shouldn’t be at risk, but nor should their health, and the best thing we can do to protect those people is to get vaccinated ourselves.

If we don’t reach herd immunity, we run the risk of the disease simply continuing to run out of control. We only need to look elsewhere to see the effects of that – India, for example, has about 400,000 official deaths from COVID-19, but is suspected to have four times as many. Are we willing to let a disease run wild that can cause so much death?

A news report yesterday featured a doctor in Alabama talking about how some patients as they were dying were begging for the vaccine, crying and saying they thought the virus was a hoax, to which she could only say: “I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

There are suggestions that Dr Minnis is considering reintroducing some form of stricter measures to limit this new surge – but given the determination to get rid of the curfew and not to stifle the tourism resurgence, it’s hard to know what they will be.

The key, however, is convincing people to roll up their sleeves and get their vaccinations.

But if they don’t, do we accept the virus in our midst, simply shrug and say oh well, people didn’t want to do the one thing likeliest to save people’s lives, there’s nothing else we can do?

We can’t just hope all will be well – we have to ask what happens next.

Downtown derelicts

Is there an election in the air? Suddenly, Dr Minnis has decided there are too many derelict buildings in the city centre. He’s right. But then again, there were too many when the last PLP administration was voted into power, and there were too many when Dr Minnis first came into office. There were too many each year since, so why all of a sudden is there a drive in the dwindling days of this administration’s term to fix them up?

The best time to do that if he wanted was when the cruise ship docks were idle and the downtown shutters were closed. We could have taken a new broom to all of downtown and freshened it up. We didn’t. So why now?

Downtown does need a makeover – but it seems it’s been a long way down the priority list.