Last week, Minister Wells specifically noted that 3% of our new Covid cases are in children ages 0 - 9. He also mentioned the intent to procure the Pfizer vaccine to combat increased cases of Covid infections among young people. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved by the FDA for children ages 12 and up. Therefore, the vaccine is still not a panacea for even the tiniest amongst us.

The yellow vaccination card has been issued by The Bahamas Ministry of Health. Once Bahamians are fully inoculated, they can only use the card that was issued to them by the Bahamian government. Therefore, if the Ministry of Tourism has an issue with how they will verify these yellow cards, they need to take the matter up with the Ministry of Health. All of this should have been taken into consideration BEFORE the announcement was made of decreased restrictions for fully vaccinated persons.

"Mr D’Aguilar said the possibility of people uploading false vaccination documents is a concern for his ministry, given the fact that many US states and other countries use different vaccination cards."

This should have been considered BEFORE the announcement was made. From the get-go one of the questions raised was what measures will be put in place to determine legitimate vaccination certificates from both visitors and residents? And no, it cannot be left to the airlines to check the validity of such documents before issuing a boarding pass at check-in because the airline then is faced with the same issue of how do they determine true from false?

That is why there should not be a lifting of all testing requirements for the fully vaccinated. If you want to cease with PCR testing for the fully vaccinated, at least use a mandatory rapid antigen test as a back-up for entry or inter-island travel.

July 1st of last year was too soon to re-open and May 1st, 2021 is too soon to fully ease travel restrictions! The Bahamas is trying to be amongst the first set of countries to require no tests for fully vaccinated individuals so as to boost tourism. Why can't we take the time to gradually ease measures whilst we await the CDC & WHO's findings on whether fully vaccinated persons can still transmit Covid? In hindsight, just like last year, we may find that we acted too soon. 'Act in haste, repent in leisure'.

Vaccinations do not stop persons from contracting and transmitting Covid! May 1st is too early to allow vaccinated persons to enter the country without tests. Even if they choose to discontinue the requirement for a PCR test, at least require a rapid antigen test for all arrivals, so that some form of testing remains in place. No testing restrictions on fully vaccinated individuals create a false sense of security.

The apples to apples referred to the fact that both Barbados and the Bahamas are independent countries, so on equal footing. However, whereas Barbados acted quickly to procure vaccines, the Bahamas is still wanting and waiting. It would seem that someone dropped the ball. As you correctly stated, "how we get out of the predicament is anyone's guess".

Turks and Caicos and other Caribbean dependencies of the US and UK are far ahead of the Bahamas with vaccinations. That's understandable since they benefited from their parent nations. So comparisons with them are mute.

However, when it comes to Barbados, we can compare apples to apples. India gifted Barbados 100,000 doses of vaccines, the Bahamas received 20,000 doses from India. Barbados has vaccinated over 60,000 persons, approximately 7,000 persons have been vaccinated in the Bahamas to date.

By the end of April, with all interested citizenry vaccinated, Barbados hopes to be able to offer vaccines to its visitors. By the end of April, the Bahamas hopes to have received its first allotment of 33,600 out of the 100,000 doses ordered through COVAX. The comparisons speak for themselves.

Mr. Smith lives in a beautiful, private gated community on Grand Bahama. I suggest that as many who want to, go and erect dwelling places at the entrance of his property. No need to worry about owning the land or meeting building codes, just erect whatever structure you desire and invite others to do the same. If shanty town dwellers have rights, then persons have the right to erect a shanty town outside his door.

So then, if there is an outbreak of any sort on these ships in a post-Covid era, as a home port will the Bahamas then be responsible for evacuating all ailing passengers & crew, and quarantining those remaining? As a country, are we capable of dealing with an emergency of this magnitude? In all reality, the only reason these ships want to home port here now is to circumvent the current multiple CDC requirements due to Covid. It might seem like a good proposition until the unforeseen happens.

These 'difficult entry rules' as you describe them, have most likely saved thousands of Bahamian lives. Other countries have even more stringent entry requirements e.g. Covid 19 tests within 3 days of arrival, so our 5-day requirement is quite fair. Some foreign populace display a callous attitude within their own countries to Covid safety measures. Imagine if they were then allowed to come here without any entry rules such as a PCR test within 5 days? We would be overrun by 'infectious people' looking for a tourist destination stupid enough to let them in. Under the current circumstances, our entry rules hopefully will continue to weed out the caring visitor who respects their health and ours enough to go through the required testing.