Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis. Photo: Donavan McIntosh/Tribune staff
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
FULLY vaccinated people can travel to The Bahamas without a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR test come May 1, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced yesterday.
He said fully vaccinated travellers within the country also will be exempt from test requirements when travelling to and from New Providence, Grand Bahama, Abaco, Exuma and Eleuthera.
Dr Minnis said proof of full vaccination will be required in both instances. Fully vaccinated people in The Bahamas will be immediately exempted from the travel requirements while travellers to the country will be exempted no sooner than two weeks after they receive their final vaccine dose.
“Once individuals within our shores… once they have received the second dose of the vaccine or they have met the vaccination requirement, they do not need any further testing to move about through our Bahama-land,” Dr Minnis said in the House of Assembly.
“Therefore, I encourage individuals, receive the vaccines as soon as possible. I’m aware of CDC regulations. CDC states that there must be a two-week delay post the second vaccination shot. However, within The Bahamas, we recognise the antibody level and immunity (level), therefore that two-week requirement is not necessary. Once you receive the second dose, you could move. However, you must still adhere to mitigation protocols in terms of social distancing, mask wearing, sanitisation, etc.
“Effective the 1st of May––this is important for tourism so as to give them adequate time to put out necessary warning and alerts––those travelling to The Bahamas from outside the country will be exempted from a COVID-19 test if they are fully vaccinated and have passed the two-week immunity period. A full vaccination will be required. If an individual is not fully vaccinated, that individual will still be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test. This will greatly assist our economy and will also assist in reducing the number of infections.”
Dr Minnis said fully vaccinated people will get other benefits.
“Once individuals are fully vaccinated,” he said, “individuals can participate in a closed environment, once all within that closed environment are fully vaccinated. The mask would not be necessary and they can participate within that environment. That means indoor dining can resume for those individuals who are completely vaccinated. It also means from a cultural perspective that those like myself who participate in Junkanoo, once we are all vaccinated, we can work within the Junkanoo shacks among us all vaccinated individuals.
“This is important because it allows within an enclosed restaurant or wedding facility, once all are vaccinated, it also means that the cultural events that we had yesterday where individuals in restaurants and weddings would have Junkanoo rushing through the environment, that can occur once all, including the Junkanooers, are vaccinated and therefore we can commence some form of normal life.”
Dr Minnis acknowledged that enforcement will be key as vaccination status determines what people can and cannot do.
“Most important as we move forward, enforcement must be adhered to,” he said. “I recognise (the) excellent work the police and COVID ambassadors are doing and I recognise many of them are probably burnt out, but I ask them to just provide us with that extra burst of energy for the next two weeks so that we can enforce our laws, our order, especially with all the events that are occurring around our islands.”
Dr Minnis said the country is expected to receive 33,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May through the World Health Organisation’s/Pan American Health Organisation’s COVAX facility. He said 22,000 vaccines have been administered to date.
Dr Minnis’ comments came as health officials warn of a third wave of COVID-19 cases amid a steady rise in infections. The case increases have been linked to travel and relaxed adherence to guidelines and officials warn that variants of concern may be in the country.
Emphasising the importance of enforcing Emergency Order rules, Dr Minnis said he met representatives of testing laboratories on Tuesday morning and reminded them of their duty to quickly report test results.
“I reminded them of the requirement to submit COVID-19 test results to the Ministry of Health’s surveillance team,” he said. “I also reminded them of the fine, the penalty for not submitting the test results as required. I reminded them that the fine for such an event was $20,000. The requirement to submit data will be tightened for the RT-PCR test result they submit within 24-hours. There will be stiffer penalties for the failure to abide by this requirement. And I informed the labs as to what those penalties would be. At this time I would not inform the nation as to those penalties, but the labs are well aware of the extent of those penalties should they not report test results to the appropriate authorities so they could be manage appropriately within 24-hours. This is a part of our heightened surveillance strategy to combat the increase in cases.”
“Enforcement of emergency orders will also be increased and enhanced. Members of the public are asked to please comply. I’m asking businesses that are able to do so to have their employees work from home where possible to decrease at the spread of COVID-19. This is a voluntary request.”
Dr Minnis also announced a change in the curfew on mainland Abaco from 8pm to 5am to 10pm to 5am.
Comments
FreeUs242 3 years ago
What a liar...
FreeUs242 3 years ago
Ppl are so happy to be fed with all these white lies from GOV, it's funny to see how their stories changes overtime. You can never trust any info coming from these ppl mouths.🤐
Emilio26 3 years ago
FreeOs242 actually Clint Watson said last night on his show that something fishy is going on with this government.
FreeUs242 3 years ago
PLP and FNM are complete liars. I don't get why ppl keep voting in these parties that always fail the Bahamians. They don't give two cents how to uplift the ppl here without some sort of trickery. Election is coming, so they all up and hyped to gain power again.
carltonr61 3 years ago
The mark of the beast has revealed itself. The clean from the unclean the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.
tribanon 3 years ago
Blatant and abusive use of coercive force!
Outright illegal discrimination of the worst possible kind......worse than racism......seems Minnis is no different than the very arrogant Michael Scott.....except Minnis is a modern day plantation master of a different colour.
Who will Minnis next decide to impose discriminatory measures against? Fat people? People who don't like him? Anyone whom he believes does not support the FNM party under his incompetent leadership? Who's next for him to target?
Minnis in a most warped and demented way, honestly thinks he has the right to pick who will be the winners and losers in our society based purely on those who do what he tells them to do. What an ...........!!!!!!!!
Emilio26 3 years ago
Tribanon it's quite obvious that Dr. Minnis is following the script given to him by Bill Gates and the WHO.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Bill Gates????
That's just stupid..
islandgirl 3 years ago
Well said!
carltonr61 3 years ago
What he will say is there is now freedom for vaccinated campaigns for political persons to leggally gather in the streets. All of their teams will be vaccinated so convenient. Even though those vaccinated can get Covid and spread it. According WHO rules vaccinations only makes the illness less sever not prevent Covid. Sounds like he has decided the country. They always quote Israel but are holding back that Israel refused AZ for its people. Get us the Sputnik V that even India is using. European States within the EU are clashing to also get Sputnik.
carltonr61 3 years ago
Enen the unfortunate persons who aquire AIDS are not descriminated against. Non vaccinated persons are like lepers in his eyesight. Disgusting baby Hitler. Covid Police will be searching bodies for the mark of the jab/beast. .
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Get your shot. Or shut up. Lol. Who cares. I getting mines..
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
He changed the curfew for Abaco????
Nassau and GB are much worse. What the hell?
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Read it wrong. He's easing restrictions on Abaco..
tribanon 3 years ago
He should have long ago done that for everyone living there.
carltonr61 3 years ago
https://sputniknews.com/uk/2021042210...">https://sputniknews.com/uk/2021042210...
Since gov followed the global lead as regards Covid health and vaccinations is the same thing happening if we follow who gets the money.
John 3 years ago
HOW DID THE 1918 PANDEMIC END: ‘ Over time, those who contracted the virus developed an immunity to the novel strand of influenza, and life returned to normal by the early 1920s, according to historians and medical experts. Reports at the time suggest the virus became less lethal as the pandemic carried on in waves. But the strand of the flu didn’t just disappear. The influenza virus continuously mutated, passing through humans, pigs and other mammals. The pandemic-level virus morphed into just another seasonal flu. Descendants of the 1918 H1N1 virus make up the influenza viruses we’re fighting today. “The 1918 flu is still with us, in that sense,” said Ann Reid, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education who successfully sequenced the genetic makeup of the 1918 influenza virus in the 1990s. “It never went away.”
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
And 50 million people died...
tribanon 3 years ago
And that my friend is a relatively small number compared to the many millions more who have died throughout history as a result of the terrorizing tyranny of evil self-serving 'mad' authoritarian dictators.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Are you always irrelevant tribanon? Or just in a pandemic?
tribanon 3 years ago
Is that the best you can do? lol
FreeUs242 3 years ago
The Russians died under Stalin, Jews died under Hilter, Black Slaves died under European and whites in America, Syrians died under their own Gov Bal Assad and the list goes on to Myanmar protestors getting slaughtered from their police. You are right on point "TRIBANON" , and there are way more dying in war than Covid. Ppl are turning a blind eye to all those secretive genocides that has been happening long ago and now. Many hospitals have intentionally killed patients from experiments. Everyone getting hyped up on Covid but goes silent when ppl in other countries are slaughtered in bundles but because it doesn't affect us now, it's ok to not care.
dwanderer 3 years ago
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.
DDK 3 years ago
DICTATORIAL LUNACY🤢 FULL STOP. Wouldn't want to be one of the testing laboratories for all the tea in China, or Nassau, for the China sensitive!
bahamianson 3 years ago
Great, i dont have to pay 150 for the pcr and 40 for the health visa. Lets rock and roll!
tribanon 3 years ago
Congratulations! You've successfully proved that you have a much greater tolerance for risk than many of us. Now all you have to do is sit back and pray for the next decade that your jabs don't produce for you any very harmful long-term side-effects. The odds are pretty good for those of us who feel comfortable relying on our own God-given natural immune system.
truetruebahamian 3 years ago
I'm looking forward to this and don't pay any attention to those who misread, cause intentional stirring up of anxieties due to the garbage they post intentionally- and to those bible thumpers the quotes that you misunderstand not only poison your lives but those of a suggestible, gullible nature.
tribanon 3 years ago
You're trusting of government and yet call the rest of us gullible. Please, my ribs are hurting from so much laughter.
Every medical doctor in the Bahamas will tell you that obesity has killed and will continue to kill many, many thousands more of us than the present Communist Chinese Virus pandemic will ever kill. Yet look at all of the attention being focused by our corrupt PM, a medical doctor no less, and his unscrupulous health officials on costly COVID-19 tests and coerced vaccinations while an ever increasing number of fast 'garbage' food establishments are being allowed to set up shop all over the place. Simply unbelievable stupity!
And for those of you who will quickly chime in and say obesity is a personal choice among the undisciplined and that's not my problem, well, you're dead wrong. Fast food has been proven to be physically addictive, and the obesity problem it fuels continues to pose a horrendous burden for our country's healthcare system and very limited financial resources. It's also the main driving factor behind our country's extremely high health insurance costs.
Any voter foolish enough to cast their vote for a FNM candidate in the next general election really needs to have their head examined.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Can't for the life of me remember any year where 3 million people died from fast food....
tribanon 3 years ago
Pleeezzz....spare me! What planet do you live on? In the developed countries millions and millions of people die each year from a myriad of obesity-related diseases. And in undeveloped countries millions more die each year from malaria, starvation, etc.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Actually its about 2.8 million globally. Obesity though is not a virus so it is in fact irrelevant to this conversation...
tribanon 3 years ago
I guess about as irrelevant as you're becoming....
Bobsyeruncle 3 years ago
Exactly! Totally irrelevant, yet again! For most, (not all), being obese is a choice made by that particular persons lifestyle, and is not contagious to others who don't wish to be that way.
Emilio26 3 years ago
Tribanon this virus is no joke. COVID-19 has killed over 100 people in The Bahamas and three million people globally.
tribanon 3 years ago
I jest not when I say many more than 100+ Bahamians now die in any given year from obesity-related illnesses. Ask your own physician the next time you see him or her.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
How is that relevant to a viral pandemic?
Can you answer that?
tribanon 3 years ago
ZZZzzzzzzz......
Empiricist 3 years ago
Wow. I used to think that Tribanon contradicted himself from day to day on different topics of newsworthiness. However, today he has graduated to contradicting himself on the same topic on the same day.
Earlier he chastised our Honorable Prime Minister on interfering with the rights of Bahamians to choose or not chose the Covid-19 vaccination and extols their freedom of choice. Great. In another column he criticizes the Honorable Prime Minister and his insightful members of the Cabinet for not taking action to close the fast food establishments because of his unproven assertion that they cause obesity.
So finally we understand Tribanon’s game plan: to be A Rat in the Hen House. By this I mean he comments on everything in order to fire up the readers of this newspaper. Wow. Good God. How low can one go.
tribanon 3 years ago
One of the most important tasks of a government in a civilized society is the careful and sensible balancing of the rights and liberties of its individual members as against the interests of society as a whole. And in a democratic society it's the individual members of that society who get to determine, through their duly established democratic processes, the powers held by their government. Under our Constitution and other laws, our elected officials (legislators) already have the power to do something about the proliferation of unhealthy fast food establishments for the greater good of our society as a whole. They do not, however, have the power to take away our Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and liberties as individuals, including our free-will to detemine what's in our own best interest from a personal health standpoint. Under our system of government, a national referendum would be necessary to alter any of our fundamental rights and liberties as individuals. Not surprisingly, Minnis is fumbling his way through all of this in the worst possible way.
tribanon 3 years ago
AND "YES", THIS AUTHORITARIAN POLICE STATE FOOLISHNESS BY MINNIS HAS THE SEAL OF APPROVAL OF THE COMMUNIST CHINESE PARTY STAMPED ALL OVER IT.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Damn. I really thought you got over your China obsession... Tsk tsk tsk..
tribanon 3 years ago
Well, you know what they say about ignorance. I bet you're one of the most blissful people around. lol
TalRussell 3 years ago
Comrades, never know what expect if foolish enough listen much promised by this bunch, so best think ahead and get your personal identification tattooed to the body if at reaching vaccination certification, you're planning on heeding we own My Pillow Guy's recommendation to be behaving like your own Free Willy to be cruising about and to travel to and fro we realm's 1200 Out Islands, Cays. and Rocks.
Body ID tattooing is a must cause* there is a risk that you could end up in some government-created graveyard - laid rest as an unclaimed body in a grave with but assigned number as your only ID?
Pray that some good-hearted Christian strangers will also show up at the graveside to wish you safe travel to wherever you're heading on your final travel excursion's stop.
Yes, and they keep repeating - trust us, because all government decisions are only made, after heeding the advice of the best medical experts?
tribanon 3 years ago
Forget tattooing....that's old school. Marvin Dames will now likely place a large order for Communist China made micro-chips. When they arrive Minnis will have his team of favourite doctors surgically implant one of them in each of us, probably at the back of our neck just below the hair line. Information will be transferable to and from the chips by secure government controlled wi-fi maintained by our health officials.
tribanon 3 years ago
P.S. The 9 digit wi-fi passcode for Minnis's chip will likely be 000-666-000.
TalRussell 3 years ago
I was thoughtin' that The People's Republic of China had done shifted over to a socialist market economy but with "Crafted in China" characteristics, yes?
SipPis 3 years ago
This is a smart and bold move. We can see from the comments here that battling local conspiracy and grievance thinking may be the biggest problem ahead. Covid will effectively be over in the US by June. Most of are our tourists are coming from the US. The risk of carrying or spreading covid after a moderna or pfizer vaccination is estimated to be at less than 10% anyway, notwithstanding that they'll be coming from a place with herd immunity already. Smart to let the US tourists return hassle free and bolster our economy with relatively little risk. Next step needs to be an education campaign to counter all the ignorance about Bill Gates, communist China, the poison or chips in the vaccines, and the 'just the flu' nonsense. Social media has allowed unmitigated ignorance to spread faster than any virus.
TalRussell 3 years ago
Are you aware that this Realms Governing Authority, has beefed up its Tech Savvy personnel, told be numbered at 103 who spend their working hours, doing nothing but scanning and searching social media sites for reporting back up the command chain, on and about this and that?
Yes, 103, reportedly is more Savvys on the payroll than has that My Pillow Guy?
tribanon 3 years ago
LOL
John 3 years ago
carltonr61 3 years ago
https://www.rt.com/news/521848-vaccin...">https://www.rt.com/news/521848-vaccin...
carltonr61 3 years ago
Find out who all making money from vaccinations. We are not their body slaves.
carltonr61 3 years ago
Junkanoo has refused the vaccination. We are not test donkeys.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
I getting my first shot next week and my second as soon as humanly possible. Hope it comes with some kind of documentation so I can go have a nice dinner and drinks knowing everyone in the place has had theirs too. As to those who don't want your shot enjoy life on your couch. I ga be out enjoying life again...
TalRussell 3 years ago
Comrade Anton, the most regular caller into local talk show circuit, pictured whilst playing, "A Big Red Top" medley. which I'd strongly recommend the OPM, adapt as the official background theme music for whenever one the House-elected, politically appointed, or hired guns is stringing the government's official version of malarky. it's got everything the medley that best describes what red party has become, yes?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EXe...">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EXe...
FreeUs242 3 years ago
👹YES
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Bring on the vaccine passports! No curfew with a passport! Let all the conspiracy theorists and part time medical pros and vaccine sissies rot at home.. lol...
tribanon 3 years ago
Grow a pair while you still can. lol
FreeUs242 3 years ago
Medical experiment💉that will still cage you like an animal 😂 Free isn't possible nowadays bud👍
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