The Tribune

Wow, this is brutal.

No warning, no time to make sure there's enough food and water for you and your family, your pets.

Simply. That's it. If you're on the food aid distribution scheme you'll still be supplied, the rest of you - you're on your own. Speak to you next week.

We'd known all day something like this was coming. Tourism Minister Dionisio D'Aguilar was even asked about it on a local TV programme at the weekend and dismissed it as nonsense, fake news we could throw in the bin. Surely he wasn't kept in the dark, a senior minister in charge of the most vital part of our economy? He's looking in a very difficult position today - either everything happened really quickly in the next 48 hours or he simply wasn't in the loop.

Last night those of us at work at The Tribune drove home expecting to see police at every junction checking drivers to see if they had permission to be on the road. In reality - not a car in sight certainly down the length of Bay Street and Eastern Road. Did the police know what was coming or were they caught unprepared like everyone else?

Certainly that seems the case this morning. Try ringing 311 or any of the other numbers to report your movements. If you get through it's like winning the lottery.

This whole summer seems to have been leading to this point. In a way COVID-19 is like hurricane season. Every year we know something really bad is going to come westward over the Atlantic and smash into the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico or America's southern coastlines. Every year we pray we're not going to be in its path.

History - which tells us everything if only we would listen - shows that however hard we pray we're going to be hit at some point. In recent years Dorian, Matthew, Joaquin were just a few which taught us a very hard lesson.

This summer the hurricane of the COVID pandemic has hit us. First it was like Hurricane Irma - a few problem areas but by and large we got away with it.

Today though - mostly due to our own actions - COVID is raging with all the force of a Category 5. Cases of infections keep piling up, hospital critical care beds are virtually full and will soon be overloaded. What happens then? Who gets a bed - the normally healthy 45-year-old man or the 80-year-old with underlying health problems? They both need a respirator but there's only one available - whose life is saved?

It's this sort of scenario the Prime Minister has long had in mind when he made his heartfelt pleas over and over again for people to follow Emergency Orders. As we can see now many, many people simply ignored him and continue to do so.

Family birthdays are still celebrated with uncles and aunts, grandparents and cousins flocking round to mark the day, masks abandoned once they step inside a house, spreading their love – and potentially infection – to those dearest to them.

Orderly shopping once inside a store is non-existent and has been since Day One.

There are still places where you can get takeout food - The Tribune exposed that last week and even includes police officers individually collecting meals for people detained in stations. We really do look after our suspected criminals so well.

Every day there are the few unlucky ones who get hauled before the court to be fined for being on the streets “out of hours”. Mostly their explanations are very simple – they needed food for their family, water – perfectly reasonable but against the rules. They are hit with fines they can probably ill afford to pay.

Then there's the economy. To be frank if it was a hospital patient they'd have called for a priest by now and he'd be saying the last prayers.

To get us out of this mess Dr Minnis last night inflicted this new torment upon us.

Make no mistake, for him and his administration this has to work. He's put everything on the line here and if it goes wrong opened the door to the PLP.

Make no mistake, even if there is a quick U-turn or softening of the latest Emergency Order Brave and his boys will be screaming "They abandoned you" to the moment the polls close in 2022.

The discussion on whether the cure is actually worse than the disease has been getting louder.

The public can count and they can make their own minds up on whether the price the nation is paying is worth it.

To date 19 people have died and there are 32 in hospital.

Of the 1100 active cases it is recognised all over the world that in patients like this something like 95 percent will make a full recovery.

People are asking is this really worth it?

We'll go through this new purgatory with our fingers crossed. If it works, a betting man would say there'll be another two months after that of slowly easing back the manacles - beaches opened, curbside trading allowed, restaurants given restricted opening, border controls eased. (PLEASE GOD WITHOUT LETTING BAHAMIANS HOPPING ON A PLANE TO FLORIDA. LET THEM DO THAT WHEN THERE'S A VACCINE).

If it doesn't work, if we come out of this period with new cases still high, people are going to lose patience and that's a very worrying situation to contemplate.

What will they and the Competent Authority do then?