By MALCOLM STRACHAN

THE latest step in removing COVID restrictions is perhaps one of the most significant for Bahamians.

The removal of the need for COVID tests for inter-island travel is more than welcome – it makes us able to travel freely within our nation. No longer will there be the hassle of arranging a test or the worry of what happens if it shows up positive before we go and visit our family members on different islands.

Yes, there are tourism benefits as well – allowing visitors to hop on board a flight to Grand Bahama or a speedboat to Exuma – but this one feels like it’s more of a benefit to our own people, removing an obstacle that has been keeping us apart.

It is one part of the continuing rebuilding of our nation after the effects of COVID. Even the daily updates on new cases have started to feel reassuring rather than worrying. The update for April 1 showed just four new cases, for example, with only one in New Providence.

As the director of administration at Southern Air, Anthony Hamilton, pointed out with the lifting of the restriction on inter-island travel: “It has wider implications for the country at large. Persons commute from other Family Islands through New Providence to Grand Bahama. It’s one less burden to carry. It’s another step towards recovery in terms of revenue generation. It speaks to normalcy. Now persons can get their sights on life returning to its normal pace. It’s one less thing to worry about. There’s some relief in sight for the Family Islands.”

Perhaps the most important words there are “it’s one less burden to carry” – because it feels like that’s what we’ve been doing.

We’ve been carrying the burden of avoiding spreading the disease. We’ve been carrying the burden of keeping our loved ones safe. But even beyond that, there are burdens we have been carrying. There have been economic burdens, personal financial burdens. For many, there has been the burden of simply putting food on the table and keeping the light on at night.

Perhaps one of the most welcome signs recently that showed how those burdens have started to life was the announcement of pay rises for staff at Atlantis.

Many of those staff members will have been on furlough not so long ago and will have faced the worry and the fear of whether they would have a job to go back to at all. And now they still have their jobs, and more money to go with it as well.

There have been other promising signs too – though some of it perhaps born out of trying to find a way to shoulder those burdens placed upon us.

Last week, Minister of Economic Affairs Michael Halkitis said that the number of registered Bahamian businesses has increased by 37 percent over the past two years.

How can that be when the economy has been reeling from the shock of COVID? Because necessity is the mother of invention, in part – and Bahamians stuck at home on furlough have been finding ingenious ways to develop their own businesses. You only need to look at some of the many stories in the pages of The Tribune, especially the Woman and Weekend sections, with so many people coming up with new businesses. There are stylists and chefs, PR experts and authors, tailors and talent scouts. It’s impossible to list all the different ways in which people have branched out because there are as many different avenues as there are people themselves exploring them. For each of those new adventures, there is a business licence to go with it – and that’s at least part of the reason why we have seen such a spike in business licences.

For Mr Halkitis, this meant that “the future is bright, we’re optimistic and bullish on the future of The Bahamas”.

Of course, alongside that, we should also learn some lessons. With so many people being added to the entrepreneur category, what can we do to make it easier for them to progress? That might be making it easier to deal with all the paperwork involved – there can still be lengthy delays in dealing with different departments within government. Or it might be finding ways to bring together this new wave of entrepreneurs with those who have finance to support them.

Emerging from COVID with a broader base of businesses will be a silver lining on a cloud that has hung over our country for far too long.

COVID has not made our country stronger – we cannot say that with 788 of our people lost to the virus. And there remain challenges ahead, not least of all with the prospect of further waves of the disease, which have been affecting Europe, especially recently.

But if we do learn our lessons – and there is no guarantee that we have – we can both reward those who have shown their endeavour already, and make it easier for such steps in future.

Returning to normal is an idea that is seductive in its appeal, but doing things better than we were before should be the goal – and will help us rebuild bigger, faster and better.