Minister for tourism and aviation, Dionisio D’Aguilar, has a valid concern. Nevertheless, he needs not to overthink this problem, as mega-resort destinations far dwarfing the Bahamas will soon come up with a consensus on how to deal with the issue.

Obviously, the very first concern must be to get the virus eradicated and be in a position to declare the country "Coronavirus-contained" or "Coronavirus-free".

Secondly, the Bahamas should seriously consider imposing mandatory quick testing for everyone upon arrival in the country, including returning residents from any country, and at a self-cost to the traveler.

If human nature is the same globally, China's recent travel resurgence overwhelmingly suggests people are willing to travel locally and on short trips.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/…

That being said, the government should initially be looking into incentivizing domestic travel by cutting duties and VAT on imports purchased from family island destinations. This would immediately encourage inter-island tourism, and development, and provide an alternative to Bahamians running to the U.S. and Panama for shopping sprees, and the possibility of contracting the virus in crowded shopping malls abroad.

The Bahamas close proximity and ease of travel for over 400 million North Americans almost making us a "domestic trip" is another positive aspect that will weigh in greatly on the road to
tourism travel recovery that regional competitors do not have.

The trickiest hat trick for Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister for tourism, remains how to increase tourism spend in a social distancing conscience environment!

**Retraction**......My apologies to the Prime Minister on this mask issue.

The PM stated, "The importation of **non-medical** protective face masks will be prohibited". However, the importation of medical-grade protective face masks will continue to be allowed.

Thank you, Mr. P.M., for moving swiftly to protect Bahamian entrepreneurs. Had the government applied the same protectionism for Bahamians across the board in the past, our country would have been in a much stronger position today with fewer people needing to depend on the government for everything during this situation.

Hopefully, these entrepreneurs have also adopted best practices, and are using different color fabric to identify the inside of masks from the outside. Otherwise, wearers may at times put the masks on backward and self-contaminate themselves. Secondly, masks should come with care instructions and warnings about washing.

The PM gets high marks for promoting local masks production. However, we need to understand the purpose, proper etiquette, and **limitations** of various masks.

**Homemade face masks**
Homemade face masks only offer a small degree of protection. While they may help prevent the spread of Covid19 from asymptomatic people. They are simply a barrier to prevent droplets from "exiting" and infecting others......They do not protect against smaller respiratory droplets, such as those containing Covid19.

**Surgical masks**
Not only does the mask not filter out smaller aerosol particles, but air leakage also occurs through the sides of the mask as you inhale...... They do not protect against smaller respiratory droplets, such as those containing Covid19.

**N95 respirators**
N95 respirators can protect against smaller respiratory droplets, such as those containing Covid19.

https://www.livescience.com/cloth-masks…

https://www.healthline.com/health/coron…

Why should people that want to pay for the added protection of an FDA approved virus protective mask that is not being produced locally be denied the opportunity to do so?

Why should people be denied the option of protecting themselves against covid19 to the best of their ability?

Allowing the importation of non-medical protective face masks **that protects from viruses** will encourage local producers to improve their skills and make products of export quality.

I hope the PM revisits this prohibition and makes the necessary amendments to allow Bahamians the opportunity to protect themselves!

Inviting people to share ideas is the best thing Tribune could have done!

We need to apply the same concerted focus to turning the country around. If all of us throw our ideas out, some of them will be well worth pursuing.

Great job!

The Cuban Convertible Currency, or CUC, is traded 1 to1 in Cuba.

All the PPE supplies we need are available in China and Taiwan. Everything with the exception of ventilators is readily available, and although courier shipping is more costly, we can have any amount shipped DHL with a 7 to 10 day delivery time.

Threatening and antagonizing a world superpower, our nearest neighbor, and biggest trading partner is stupid at best.

We need to remember the saying "you need to kiss ass until you can kick ass"

We should move diligently with the purpose of obtaining our PPE needs in Asia.

This situation is a lesson and good medicine for the government that they must stop giving everything away lock-stock-&-barrel to foreign interest and start thinking "Bahamas & Bahamians first" when dealing with foreign entities.

Making masks mandatory was a badly needed step, however, in addition to that, it is only fair they also identify where one could purchase them from.

one of the very first low hanging fruits we should capitalize on is unnecessary expat workers. Foreigners holding jobs that Bahamians can do was the focus of conversation a few short weeks ago. With unemployment now heading north of 20%, a stalled economy, and significantly reduction in hard currency due the fall of tourism, we simply can no longer afford the accompanying multifaceted economlc drain on the local economy caused by expat workers.

It was revealed that over 20,000 expats were in the country occupying employment that Bahamians should have. If these jobs were made available to Bahamians, a profound immediate, badly needed stimulus to the economy would result, as these people spend monies locally compared to expats that spend as little as possible to survive, and repatriate the majority of earnings to home countries either to support families or invest in homes and businesses back home.

As the saying goes "mouth can say anything"!

Robert Meyers needs to identify these "other governments which have communicated what they can see and know timelines to recovery from the covid19 pandemic.

What government has told citizens "when they're getting back to work, as well as how much they're going to spend and how much they're going to save to deal with their situation"?

President Trump is the sole individual that was ignorant enough to state that he wanted to see churches full for Easter on April 12th while covid19 has nowhere near peaked in America today April 8th.

Not one country on the planet regardless of financial status has even remotely attempted to predict any recovery whatsoever, but Robert expects the Bahamas government to do what nobody else could.

PM Minnis is in uncharted waters doing the best he can and has already said he needs help brainstorming a new direction for the country. What we all should be doing is trying to think of suggestions to put forward to the government of how to utilize proven best practices on how to make the country more self-sufficient so we are less dependant on foreigners for survival.

Jamaica and the Dominican Republic might be worthwhile case studies as both countries have done commendable jobs of moving towards more self-sufficiency, especially in food production and owning bigger shares of their tourism product.

This is not the time for whining. We all need to put our collective heads together and HELP the Prime Minister stir the country to the best recovery possible that benefits the most of our people the fastest. The more people we leave behind, the more crime and other social ills we create for ourselves to deal with in the short and long terms!

If whatever criteria Dr. Sands used to come to his stated assertion is real to him, now is the time to begin dialogue with Cuba for medical assistance. We will have no other choice as the US and UK will soon be more overwhelmed than their own medical capacity and Cuba is known to have an abundance of medical personnel.

New infections from the 1st two weeks of people not wearing masks in foodstores alone might be substantially more than our medical system can handle. We might start seeing the fallout from this in the next 7 days.

Better to be over prepared well in advance than under prepared & running around like a headless chicken looking for last minute solutions to a life or death situation.