Family Island cases ‘nothing to do with the election’

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis says an increase in COVID-19 deaths and cases on some Family Islands has nothing to do with the early general election held last month.

He said the outbreaks have come too far after the election to be attributed to that event and the campaign season.

“The infection occurs five to six days after exposure, so this is not related to any activities by the FNM,” he said yesterday.

The early election was held on September 16. Political parties did not always adhere strictly to health protocols at rallies and political events leading up to the election, prompting criticism from top health officials.

Between October 2 and October 15, the Ministry of Health recorded 133 cases on Family Islands.

Dr Minnis said: “Throughout the entire COVID we have utilised the science. We’ve followed the science and when there were changes, because COVID was very fluid, we would make the necessary changes. When individuals are saying that the flare up or the infections you are seeing in the Family Islands are a result of the election on the 16th, when you look at the science and individuals being exposed, infections do not manifest themselves for at least five to six days.

“So let’s assume all the rallies were on September 16. If every rally was on the 16th and they were exposed at the events then according to science the infection would manifest itself by the 22nd or 23rd, not this late. What I would suggest is they need to send down a medical team, a contact tracing team and a vaccination team to these islands and vaccinate as aggressively as possible. Once they use the contact tracing team they would be able to tell exactly where the infection comes from, which bars, which homes, etc. I would hope they would release such information.

“We were able to say where clusters started at press conferences. The travel visa provided a lot of information with respect to contact tracing, but they have dismantled it and thrown away a great weapon in terms of contact tracing.”

While the average person who is infected with COVID-19 will display symptoms five to six days after exposure, the incubation period for the virus is 14 days, according to scientists. Some people can be asymptomatic carriers of the virus, helping to form clusters by infecting others without showing symptoms.

Comments

ThisIsOurs says...

Maybe you just did? We'll soon find out if it worked. The FNM continues to shoot themselves in the foot. They should have dumped him on September 17th

Posted 20 October 2021, 9:54 a.m. Suggest removal

FrustratedBusinessman says...

Can't wait for Kwasi or another one of his buddies to nominate him for leadership, and then have him win the vote to stay on as leader lol. I have seen nothing from the FNM so far that indicates that they have learnt a single lesson from their glorious spanking last month.

Posted 20 October 2021, 11:24 a.m. Suggest removal

ohdrap4 says...

Renward came out of his fasting and is now delivering big words to the media already. lol.

Posted 20 October 2021, 1:07 p.m. Suggest removal

tribanon says...

And Renward's mind is in a terrible funk state because of what Minnis did to him by appointing him minister of health to take as much of the COVID-19 political heat and pain as possible. Poor Renward never had a political chance in hell of surviving the combined side-step and head-fake move that Minnis put on him. LOL

Posted 20 October 2021, 1:23 p.m. Suggest removal

sheeprunner12 says...

These new cases is related to the Govt effort to give ppl the vaccine and make more ppl "superspreaders". The vaccine is mashing up ppl who are already at-risk due to so many co-morbidities. Our ppl are already burdened with so many health issues, that vaccine is just another burden. We need to focus on WELLNESS

Posted 20 October 2021, 10:57 a.m. Suggest removal

not true about vaccine. if it were alot more persons would be ill since the population is "persons with comorbidities"

Posted 20 October 2021, 1:31 p.m. Suggest removal

quavaduff says...

Stop the silliness. The only way the Bahamian economy will come back is if everyone gets the vaccine. The science has proven this all over the world but you knuckleheads keep on telling people nonsense. Get vaccinated, wear masks, stay socially distant when possible and please stop listening to these anti-science fools. Science doesn't care if you believe it or not, it's still based on facts.

Posted 20 October 2021, 12:43 p.m. Suggest removal

The chastising did not work before, does not work now.

The appeal to "Science" turned out to be a fallacy.

wrong. its clear that everybody doesnt need to get the vaccine since only 150k of us are vaccinated but 95% of us are not sick, never were sick. We need to look at the actual data and not the messaging

Posted 20 October 2021, 1:33 p.m. Suggest removal

what we really needed in this fight is an accurate portrayal of "the vulnerable". Gilbert Morris said that from day 1. He advocated removing vulnerable people from the general population to protect them and letting the rest of society function as normal. Now you might get into some sticky ground considering 60% of us are obese. But even with the 60% obesity rate, 60% of us didnt get seriously ill... so what is the real vulnerability? how many of us were asymptomatic? better yet how many of the vulnerable were asymptomatic? why? did they isolate? or was it something else?

Posted 20 October 2021, 11:05 p.m. Suggest removal