EDITORIAL: Good news - but omicron is on its way

As of Tuesday, December 21, 2021

FIRST, the good news – and there’s quite a lot of it to be seen.

Atlantis has 6,000 staff members back on duty for the holidays and the resort is reporting full occupancy well into the New Year.

That comes on the back of the Thanksgiving Day basketball tournament at the resort, which brought in more than 7,000 guests.

That surge is being reflected elsewhere too. Just look across the stretch of water from Paradise Island, where Senor Frogs is jumping. Day manager Shanika Russell reports the Downtown restaurant is “seeing a lot of business” and “very, very busy days”.

Need more good news? The government last night reported that the CDC has lowered the COVID-19 Travel Risk Advisory rating for The Bahamas from level three to level two. That still has to be updated on the CDC website, but that should bring even more visitors to help our economy’s rebound.

Good news, and plenty of it. All of which makes it all the more frustrating that the increasing spread of the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus could make all those advances come crashing down.

A fourth wave of the pandemic is the last thing we need, and could be crippling for some sectors that are still only just starting to recover.

It is very possible the variant is already here – it has been confirmed in more than 70 countries, including some of our major tourist markets, and we’re already seeing increased numbers of COVID cases here.

In the meantime, it is encouraging to hear that more than 60 percent of Atlantis staff are fully vaccinated – and we hope the rest of the population sees that number keep rising too to help in the fight against the virus.

The battle against the pandemic is far from over – and the battle for our economy can only be helped if we do all we can to keep the number of infections low.

Davis plan

It is about time we heard from Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis on the government’s plan to fight COVID-19.

Mr Davis will give a national update on Thursday at 11am, and given how much emphasis was given on the election campaign trail to the PLP’s plan for dealing with COVID, we have heard very little from Mr Davis himself since his party came to office.

So we welcome the opportunity to hear directly from the Prime Minister. We would appreciate even more the opportunity to put questions to him at such a moment, as there are many.

We would like to hear exact details of the planned rollout of free testing, for example, including the cost to the public purse and how many tests have been sourced.

We would like to hear the plans for dealing with the approaching omicron “tidal wave”, as it was called by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

And Mr Davis could perhaps learn something from his British counterpart – who is struggling politically right now as he is seen to be dithering and not being decisive in response to the virus.

The Prime Minister we see on Thursday should be one that is determined and has a set plan, clearly laid out for all to see.

Tell us what you plan to do about a fourth wave, Mr Davis, what other measures might be introduced, and what level of new cases would trigger such changes.

Let us know what we’re in for. Those campaign trail boasts about a plan are one thing, now it’s time to put them into action. Be clear, detailed – and bold enough to make the tough decisions.

carltonr61 2 years, 4 months ago

We could only rollout safety measures like POTUS said today. No lockdowns nor restrictions. Vaccines do not work against omicron so the new new is that all must be careful and roll with that.

carltonr61 2 years, 4 months ago

The Tribune still living in Sands and Minnis backwaters world. Their opinion and ilk like UK Prime Minister are past prime time.

ThisIsOurs 2 years, 4 months ago

"*can only be helped if we do all we can to keep the number of infections low."

the first part of doing all we can is acknowledging that the tourists we love are the cause of the case rise. Everytime they come in droves they bring a new variant we have no immunity to and cases go up.

Acknowledging that alone would mean our approach to the fight would change, more emphasis would be placed on the places tourists congregate and their interaction with Bahamian staff. Our controls would have greater impact.

The alternative is to pretend tourists dont spread COVID, allow the virus to escape the hotels, spread into the community then blame Bahsmians who cant behave. How's that 2nd approach worked for us so far?

John 2 years, 4 months ago

THE OMICRON VIRUS appears to have peaked in South Africa. While it was a rapid spreading variant, it appears to have been short lived with minimal hospitalizations and few deaths. And the symptoms appear to be the same fro vaccinated, unvaccinated and those who had booster shots. The best preparation and defense for OMICRON is to keep a healthy immune system, follow safety protocols and let the variant run its course. Persons who get the strain have mild symptoms and once they recover, they have natural immunity .

John 2 years, 4 months ago

Can the omicron strain restore natural immunity in vaccinated persons? The data seems to suggest it neutralizes all vaccines and established its own immunity/resistance to Covid SARS: The next question they address is whether Omicron escapes neutralization by convalescent sera. Omicron strongly evades natural infection. Current data suggests that those who have been previously infected have little to no protection against Omicron infection. To analyze the degree to which the highly mutated Omicron escapes vaccine antibody neutralization, Cameroni et al. created Wuhan S and Omicron S pseudoviruses to test against a wide variety of existing vaccines. They tested the pseudoviruses against the sera from patients vaccinated with Moderna’s mRNA-1273, Pfizer’s BNT162b2, AstraZeneca’s AZD1222, J&J’s Ad26.COV2.S, Russia’s Sputnik-V, and Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV.

John 2 years, 4 months ago

‘’The data from figure 4 shows that fully-vaccinated sera with the Moderna vaccine saw a 33-fold drop in neutralization against Omicron, Pfizer a 44-fold drop, and AstraZeneca a 36-fold drop. Notably, Recently released data shows that sera from people who received the third dose lost almost ninety percent of its potency against Omicron after two weeks. After three months, most third-dose sera failed to neutralize at all. This data confirms the epidemiological observations that most fully doubly-vaccinated and triply-vaccinated individuals, including those with prior infection, are susceptible to infection by Omicron within three months of the last boos.tee’ .. . My OPINION: if the Omicron variant ‘neutralizes’ all the vaccines resistance to the virus as well as the body’s natural immunity and the patient still recovers and become naturally resistant to Covid, then it has to be establishing some type of immunity in recovered patients. This , then, would suggest, strongly so, that persons who recovered from Omicron SHOULD NOT rush out and get vaccinated or take booster shots. They have natural immunity, at least in the short term, that, apparently can adapt to variants of the virus. Ok change immunity to resistance since some may think ‘immunity’ is too strong a word.

John 2 years, 4 months ago

‘ “Even with the strong booster campaign, Omicron has to be very significantly less severe than Delta to not likely overwhelm healthcare capacity levels,” said Ewan Birney, deputy director-general of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. “Data from South Africa is interesting and positive about some lower severity of Omicron, but not obviously clear cut that it is at the levels needed.”

carltonr61 2 years, 4 months ago

Great research John.

John 2 years, 4 months ago

So the world should be watching South Africa over the next few weeks and see what happens as the Omicron strain wears off. Pay less attention to frail Joe Biden with his vaccines rhetoric and Anthony Fauci with his intentional misinformation. Notice how Fauci is not giving definite answers to anything these days but instead giving lists of options and possibilities. Those providing information from South Africa are more forthright with genuine information and don’t seem to be driven or restricted by a vaccine agenda. For example Dr Fauci said that it is a possibility that humans may have to be wearing masks for the rest of their lives, at least on airlines and enclosed public spaces. But the science shows that corona virus do not last forever, at least at pandemic levels. Either they become seasonal or they disappear. Right now they are controlling the masses with fear and manipulation.

realitycheck242 2 years, 4 months ago

Thanks for all the info John .or should i dear say Dr John .....good stuff

sheeprunner12 2 years, 4 months ago

Agree 100% .... Fauci is pushing the UN agenda. Time for ppl to wise up

Economist 2 years, 4 months ago

Please finish with all the report.

That the Soth African report also says that they are not sure whether the Omicron is less dealy or it because so many in South Africa have either already had one of the COVID-19 varients or have been vaccinated and so those persons are not getting it very badly.

Also note that Israel is rolling out a 4th set of boosters. Why would they do this unless they felt that the vaccines were a way to slow the virus?

carltonr61 2 years, 4 months ago

I think SA ruined the fear show by going global about the weakness of the prevailing strain or there exists a controlled climb down back to normal. Israel's tourist sector became severely damaged last week as the government declared USA and most of Europe level Red. They are trying to squiggle a way back. Information that Omicron bypasses three shots is hard to sell. The major USA news outlet is encounter pediasex legal issues and remains distracted away from 4C talking blind science hysterical prophecies that mins and sand are decipals of.

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