By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville says the government is closely monitoring the highly infectious Omicron subvariant that is spreading in some parts of the world and is preparing in the event of another potential surge.

“We’re watching the cases very closely,” Dr Darville said before going to a Cabinet meeting yesterday. “We’re watching the numbers in The Bahamas and we are concerned and we have meetings to determine what our next steps will be.

“We’re always in preparation mode,” he added. “It’s our job to get on top of things before they get out of hand and so I can assure you that the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the EOC, we’re watching this very closely and if we have to move, we will.”

The Omicron subvariant, called the BA.2, has been detected in more than 50 countries worldwide, including the US where it is said to be the most dominant strain.

Some nations are also experiencing a spike in infection rates in view of the infectious strain and have tightened restrictive measures in response to the new threat.

Asked whether the government planned to impose any travel bans, Dr Darville said there were no plans to do so at this time.

This comes as the nation’s daily COVID case count continues to remain low, with only four cases recorded on Sunday and one new case on Monday.

The Bahamas has recorded more than 33,000 virus cases since the start of the pandemic and over 780 virus related deaths.

Yesterday, Dr Darville said his ministry continues to work to ensure the country has sufficient resources to manage the ongoing COVID-19 fight and provide proper medical care to ordinary Bahamians.

“We are in budget mode as we speak,” he said, “and the Ministry of Health and Wellness petitioned the Ministry of Finance to ensure that areas where there are deficiencies and resources, we’re able to have the resources in order to function effectively in the next budget year.”

Asked how much money is needed by his ministry in the next budget cycle, the minister was unable to say.

“It’s very difficult to put a price tag on what resources would be needed in the fight against COVID, but I assure you that there is sufficient funds that is available to the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Davis-led administration, if there are shortfalls, I have the ability to go to Cabinet to (rectify) those shortfalls because we all know that without having COVID under control, it’s very difficult to get the economy moving.

“So I’m in a fortunate position that if we do run into some additional budgetary constraints, we would have access to funding that would be approved by Cabinet.”

Dr Darville also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to build two new hospitals, one in Grand Bahama and another in New Providence.

He said: “The work associated with bringing those into reality is ongoing from day one when we took office, that work is still going, and we are progressing very rapidly and we made a commitment to the residents of Grand Bahama that we should be in a position to put shovels in the ground very soon.

“As far as all of the details associated with it, we are still waiting for our health planners as well as our architectural engineers to do the final work for a total costing, but I can say this much to the residents of Grand Bahama, that the construction would be a phased approach. We’re activating phase one and before phase one is completed, we will activate phase two.”