By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WITH the emergence of new and more infectious COVID-19 strains, Free National Movement Chairman Dr Duane Sands says the government must not become overly eager when easing additional restrictions and instead take a more cautious approach.

Dr Sands spoke after the government announced further relaxations to COVID-19 rules on domestic travel.

People travelling from New Providence and Grand Bahama are no longer required to take a COVID test for inter-island travel.

The travel guidelines, which came into effect Friday, apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, according to Press Secretary Clint Watson.

When contacted for comment yesterday, Dr Sands told The Tribune the FNM did not have many “great oppositions” to new travel guidelines.

He only reiterated the need for the government to remain cautious when deciding how to further re-open the nation’s economy.

He said: “We all would like to see improved economic numbers and we all would like to see the economies of the various islands improve and by the grace of God, and with the right policies, they will but at the same time, you don’t necessarily get another bite of the apple and so these are tough decisions and all we could hope is that decisions are being made for the right reasons.

“They certainly are somewhat counter to the recommendations coming out of PAHO and WHO. But we have taken a position that we are not going to oppose the rules for opposing sake. We are mindful of the complexity of public opinion, the economic impact, the medical impact, the state of affairs in our healthcare facilities.”

The former health minister also pointed to the emergence of new COVID strains, which he called concerning.

“We no longer just have the BA.2 subvariant but just within the last 24 hours, WHO has spoken of the XE subvariant which is (said to be) more virulent than any of the previous COVID strains and so while no one is expected to have a crystal ball and we all hope and pray that we’ve seen the back end of COVID, the real question is what would prudence demand?

“And, also what is driving the changes in policy or protocol? Is it truly about the science or is it more about politics? You know we don’t have many great oppositions to the change as long as we will be monitoring the situation. This week, we would’ve had a scattered shot in terms of the dashboard. There were days when we had one case, four cases and 20 cases and so where’s this thing headed? I don’t know.”

Although virus numbers still remain relatively low in the country, Dr Sands said there is a possibility of another COVID wave occurring as he warned policy makers to start preparing now.

“In public health,” he said, “the time to prepare for a next pandemic is now, whether you’re talking about the next wave or you’re talking about ebola or some other biological hazard, the time to prepare and build capacity is now and the truth of the matter is we have limited capacity.

“While I don’t know for sure (about another wave), what I can say is we have seen the BA.2 variant become the predominant strain in a number of locales in our neighbouring countries so if it’s happened there – history has shown that we tend to follow.”

As of April 1, there were 33,295 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country since the start of the pandemic, with just four new cases reported that day. Only 85 of those cases were still active. Meanwhile, only ten people remain in hospital with the disease.

Yesterday, Dr Sands encouraged Bahamians to continue following the recommended health measures, warning the country’s fight with the disease is far from over.

“We would like to believe that we could only focus on only Russia and Ukraine. We would like to believe that we could only focus on the price of oil and inflation and Will Smith and Chris Rock but the truth of the matter is COVID is real and as much as we would like to pretend there are still thousands of people dying from COVID everyday around the world.”