THE news that we are throwing away vaccines should be a cause for national shame.

At the same moment as a Bahamian delegation is showing off to the world at the Dubai Expo – attended by 192 countries - here we are binning vaccines many of those countries might need.

If that doesn’t sound ridiculous enough, former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis calculates that only about 30 of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines were being used a week, or about 4.2 per day.

As Dr Minnis says, “Just reviewing that would inform them that they would run into serious problems.”

He added: “If they were monitoring this properly, they would have made contact with other nations that have J&J, see where their expiration dates are and do an exchange as opposed to throwing away the taxpayers’ money.”

The question of money rubs more salt into the wound – with us having paid $45,000 already as a 15 percent deposit, and more money to be paid. So we will be paying for vaccines we’ve tossed in the garbage.

If people are concerned about the size of the Dubai travel bill as a sign of how this government is managing our money, they should be doubly concerned at us paying literally money for nothing now.

We do not know if efforts were made to trade the vaccines before their expiry date, with Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville seemingly shrugging off the matter, saying: “All of the doses of vaccines that went into expiration, they have been discarded. It is as simple as that. Vaccines that have expired are of no more value.”

He seemed to blame the Bahamian people for a lack of appetite for the vaccine.

Even if we didn’t trade the vaccine, could we not have donated it to a country in need? Anything would have been better than just letting it sit on a shelf until it was no more use.

If the government isn’t monitoring the all-important vaccines close enough to see this problem coming, what else aren’t they keeping a close watch on?

It certainly doesn’t reassure us about how the administration is looking after the public health – or the public purse.

Travel warning

The change in the travel warning from the CDC in the US for The Bahamas seems to be lagging behind.

We have had the travel warning moved back up to level four due to the “very high” level of infections.

However, while cases are still high – 526 new cases on January 16 and 17 – the numbers are slightly down on the week before, with 818 cases recorded on one day alone just over a week before.

It seems that the CDC could be more responsive as the case numbers change – and if numbers do drop, we hope the travel warning won’t be delayed in moving back down to level three, then two.

The Omicron surge is far from over – but let’s deal with it at the level it is right now, not the level it was a week or two ago.