Don't be too hard on the Bahamas! Germany didn't get it right last year when they had catastrophic floods! These are unprecedented times we are living in.

The main problem right now (8th October 2021, a year after its launch) is that no one seems to accept the Sand Dollar for payment. Surely, we should be able to use it for paying our light bill or renewing our driving licenses? Somehow the government doesn't seem to have connected the dots... At the moment, it appears to have no advantage over a credit card. If transaction charges are less, perhaps those who promote it ought to stress that.

I must admit that I am seriously concerned that there is far too much vaccine hesitancy here in the Bahamas. Even my own daughter and her husband won't take it. Can't they see the writing on the wall? Cases are gradually rising here, and with the heat coming on, people are closing their windows and turning on the a/c. A/c is a double whammy, since not only does it mean reduced ventilation with the windows closed - a known risk, it also means dry air, and that weakens the barrier provided by the mucus membranes in the nasal passages, so that they are more vulnerable to the virus. We know what is happening in India. They got too relaxed about the virus. It can happen here, and probably will if we don't get vaccinated. It is absolutely not something that one should put off until tomorrow. Please don't wait until there are people dying at the door to PMG, like stranded fish, gasping out their lives. (https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-n…)

He obviously didn't, since the article includes this expert quote: “Our results show reduced effectiveness against the [South African] variant only in a short window of time (7-13 days post-second dose) since all the breakthrough cases we saw were in this time frame,” Adi Stern, a professor at Tel Aviv University and one of the co-authors, said in an email.

Why do you think they had a choice? The vaccines are in huge demand. The jury is still out on which one is the best vaccine even though right now the AstraZeneca one may appear to be a little less effective. We don't know which one stimulates the T-cell response best, which may have implications for long term immunity. I had the AstraZenica vaccine and I'm very happy with it. When there's plenty available, you can always get the one that you prefer then.

It's easy to scoff, especially when you are in the hot seat. You should realise, though, that the Bahamas has done well compared with many other nations, including our giant neighbour to the north. Yes, there have been errors, but by and large we are on track. I couldn't have done better, I am sure. Could you ? A little humility, please.

Vaccines do boost the body's own immunity. See, for example: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/conver…

There you are wrong. The risks of death for you from covid might be small, but they are a lot higher than those for the vaccine. And you are forgetting about the chronic disease ("long covid" - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc…) that we are just beginning to learn about. Some experts are suggesting that there might be an epidemic of dementia to follow covid. It has been shown to attack the brain (https://blendle.com/i/newsweek/how-covi…) in many cases. It's certainly true that it attacks old people (your Mum, for example) and if you've had the vaccine you are less likely to pass the virus on to others, including her. There's one thing that is absolutely certain: the vaccine is a lot less risky than covid. Of course it's been produced in record time: it's like a moon shot. The science was already in place from many decades of research, the first vaccine was produced within days of the Chinese publishing the genome of the virus. The rest was just testing, and that was accelerated hugely by throwing money at the problem. Some trials could be done in parallel rather than sequentially, but there was no adverse effect on safety. Before distribution the vaccines had been tested on tens of thousands of people with no serious ill-effects and all the evidence was thoroughly reviewed by independent experts with no interest in the drug companies themselves. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-…

Please don't call it the "China Virus" or any variant of that. My wife, who is Asian, but not Chinese, gets abuse because people think she is Chinese. There are some 2 billion actual Chinese who are in no way responsible for the virus. If it had started here, would you like it to be called the "Bahamas Virus"? It could have done and it would probably have been no fault of any Bahamian.
As for the performance of the Bahamian government on covid, it has done fairly well on a per capita basis, much better than the U.S. as a whole, Florida alone, and most countries in Europe. (See, for example, https://offloop.net/covid19/?default=Ba…)
If you want somewhere that's done a lot better than the Bahamas you could choose Cuba, or China itself, which latter is the only country whose economy has returned to healthy growth. Perhaps you would prefer their leadership?

You are wrong to think that the AstraZenica vaccine is inferior. The 96% and 63% figures were not produced on a level playing field. When compared head-to-head it looks as if the AstraZencia vaccine might actually be better. Certainly it is very effective: https://theconversation.com/how-well-do…