The Tribune

By Malcolm Strachan

THE COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage around the world – with 182 countries registering cases last week – which brings us to a question that has yet to be answered: “Where are the next batch of vaccines to inoculate our citizens going to come from?”

The Biden administration’s announcement last week it will be keeping about a quarter and sharing the rest of its unneeded doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine with select countries – The Bahamas not among them – confirmed Health Minister Renward Wells’ request came up short.

As it stands, by the time we receive the remaining 33,600 doses of AstraZeneca through the COVAX facility, we would have immunised just a quarter of the population. That is what was suggested in a rough calculation by former Minister of Health Duane Sands.

While current Minister of Health Renward Wells continues to express his optimism about where we are and how far we need to go to achieve herd immunity, the math looks quite disheartening when we consider how long we’ve had to wait to get shots in arms thus far.

We should note, however, the government’s policies continue to do the job with regard to fighting off each wave of the virus. Last week’s cases were fewer than the week before – an indicator of success – and surely the government intends to build upon its achievements.

However, without additional doses, particularly for a tourism destination hoping for arrivals to quadruple as soon as possible, we are indeed playing with fire.

Moreover, employees, who have already had to endure hardships through layoffs and working fewer hours, are now also going to be burdened with the costs of taking RT-PCR tests weekly just to maintain their income.

Although the government never implemented a national vaccine mandate, the insistence made by Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has, in effect, given the business community the green light to institute their own vaccination policies in their places of work. Certainly, Dr Minnis is most concerned with the health and safety of our people, as well as the resurgence of our economy.

Hence, he reiterated an earlier call for the business community to encourage employees to get vaccinated. And encourage they have been doing.

At the opening of a new passport office in Eleuthera last month, Dr Minnis said: “It is established that if the entire environment in the workplace, if those individuals are vaccinated, then if one individual within that grouping is not, then you need not close your business because the remainder are protected.

“And if those who had refused or for whatever reason do not want to be vaccinated then there should be some form of test that they should do to ensure that the environment is safe.”

Answering questions on what some employees are deeming to be bullying tactics from their employers last week, Labour Minister Dion Foulkes said his ministry is receiving external consultation but had no definitive direction to offer from a government standpoint.

Meanwhile, what will happen to unvaccinated employees expected to pay for their own testing weekly? After all, there are not even enough vaccines on the island for such a mandate to be a fair business policy. Especially if we consider the national minimum wage of $210 per week,

Bahamian employees are being disenfranchised by a disjointed and improperly coordinated effort to vaccinate the population and mitigate the spread of the virus.

This is essentially placing the cart before the horse. Such an utterance should have never been made by Dr Minnis before ensuring sufficient amounts of the vaccine were in country.

One cannot argue the importance of getting our economy back on track and people to work, but this haphazard response to the Prime Minister’s call for employers to encourage employees to get vaccinated is only resulting in further stress on people pushed to the brink.

The Minister of Health needs a clear mandate – ensure our vaccine stores are increased threefold as soon as possible so we can unequivocally place the onus on the citizenry to hopefully make the most responsible decision for them, their families and the entire country – a decision no one can make without enough vaccines being available.

The race to get vaccines is intense globally. Nonetheless, there is not a sense that the Minister of Health is as focused as we would like him to be on the issues at hand. While we can understand he is not a doctor like his predecessor, Dr Minnis saw in him someone who can get the job done, and continues to repose a great deal of confidence in his capabilities.

Indeed, we would like the minister to get the job done.

Although we have done well enough to decrease the weekly numbers, the pandemic is far from over.

To avoid another wave, the general consensus is widespread vaccinations are a prerequisite. But we cannot begin to sensibly have this conversation without additional doses.