They've said no to mass testing and said they'll rely on contact tracing with targeted testing.

They spoke to Cayman said the cost was too expensive and said no.

They got 10k donated and guess they'll use their current approach and burn through the 10k as time passes.

Unless they change policy it looks heavy on the contract tracing, light on the mass testing.

thenassauguardian.com/2020/04/01/no-bla…
thenassauguardian.com/2020/05/29/minnis…
tribune242.com/news/2020/jul/02/were-ca…

So you raise a point. Does the govt have a cost-benefit analysis
somewhere?

it would be good is they produced their analysis that says. This is the cost, risk, and economic benefit of opening the borders in September.
This is the cost/risk and benefit of opening the borders now.

We, therefore, say that opening now is worth the X dollars vs. the risk.

Do they have such a thing handy?

They must have had an idea of how many guests we were going to get based on bookings and have a cost of shutting down things again.

IIn the absence of seeing something handy I'll do my own and would love to be corrected if my #s are wrong. I've heard we welcomed 2k tourists since the opening. in the year 2000, according to TourismToday the average stopover spend was 1000 per pax.

So let's project this over the month of July, assume maybe it picks up, do we estimate 5k? tourists.

5000 persons at 1500 p/p (adjusting up for inflation). That's about 7.5m dollars. Lets say its 10k tourists spending 2k p/p that's $20m.

On the risk side, the worst case is a spread causing a lockdown. What is the economic cost of that? then what is the likely scenario? Increased cases but a tempered lockdown? If so what is the cost of that?

I would love to see a breakdown (If they took the time to do this).

Good reading.

Pace aside, they should have laid out back then what a reopened Bahamas would like since COVID isn't going anywhere. The image was that COVID would be wiped out once we lockdown. The problem is that doesn't explain what happens when cases come when we reopen.

Drs. Dahl-Regis and Minnis have rejected the idea of mass testing for COVID, so I don't see mass antibody testing anytime soon. Unless they reverse the policy.

I do think there was a claim of a Japanese person having it twice early (though that the time testing so sure). wired.com/story/did-a-woman-get-coronav…

Interesting point. I can somewhat see the beach closure but it is strange that if beaches are a risk and required closing then all gatherings not involving immediate family should have been as well.

it seems to me that we have adopted policies that punish certain industries. though the risk seems comparable to others. Alcohol sales, number shops, Arawak Cay, and now beaches. While these industries remained closed, similar industries (fatty food/cigarette sales, other non-essential establishments, other restaurants all over Nassau, all other places where gathering can happen) were allowed to be open.

Actually it raises another ironic thing, exercise was limited while ordering McDonalds was basically unrestricted.

Problem is that the government had not adequately put out this message before.

Because they've essentially tied 'a good job' with a slowdown in confirmed cases, they haven't stressed that "when we slowly reopen cases may come, don't be alarmed, we need to manage hospitalizations, the elderly etc".

So now we meet fork in the road.

Press on with the reopening and quit bragging about the current confirmed case count and no new cases in X weeks, tell people that we will get new cases and we need to do XYZ to manage

OR

Try to minimize your numbers, go back to knockdowns, or close the borders, etc.

Lets see what we do from here.

One of the first rules in a good debate is not to insult the person you are trying to persuade. I posed what I thought was a simple question about how the article is worded.

The article is not completely clear in linking the first and last sentences. It says that there are measures in place, however, they still post risk and ends with a quote mentioning that we cannot take that risk. fi the risk we cant take is not quarantining asymptomatic carriers from the Caribbean who don't have a negative test in hand but need to quarantine, the article could mention that the PM then went on to speak to defend the decision to quarantine those with no COVID test results...(or whatever it was he was referring to).

Also, I hope all is well since the demise of B.I.com.

You're the most honest with your friends!

Can someone make sense of this line:

“We say they show symptoms at the 14th day, but during that time they can shed the virus, (on the) third day, (on the) fifth day and infect all of us yet they’re normal. We cannot take this risk.”

So if we cannot take the risk then........? Is he arguing for or against his policy?