THE Minister of Health was in optimistic mood yesterday.
As Renward Wells received the second of his COVID-19 vaccination injections, he talked to reporters about the nation’s progress in its fight against the pandemic.
His numbers, however, didn’t seem to add up.
Let us recap a little first. Back in March, Mr Wells was predicting that The Bahamas would have achieved herd immunity – the stage where enough of the population has become immune through infection or vaccination to reduce the chance of more infections – by the start of the summer.
Well, summer’s here and we’re not there yet. So yesterday, Mr Wells outlined some new goals.
“I would say if we could vaccinate 120,000 of our population we would be in good stead. That’s just my number. I’m not the health expert,” said the Health Minister, “but just sitting down and talking to other health experts the thinking is if we can get probably around 120,000 people vaccinated, we would be in good stead as a nation.”
The numbers are simple enough – experts estimate that you would need around 80 percent of people to be vaccinated or have been infected to reach herd immunity.
Mr Wells himself rounds the numbers off and says our population is around 400,000. So that would mean the herd immunity threshold would be about 320,000 people. Take the 120,000 off which Mr Wells is hoping to reach in vaccination terms, and that leaves 200,000 people – half our population – that would need to have caught COVID-19 to reach that 80 percent figure.
That, of course, is massively more than the number of confirmed cases so far – at the time of going to press, the total number of cases to date was 11,864. Of that number, 230 have been confirmed as having died of COVID-19.
Now Mr Wells is quite right when he says that “you have a large portion who would’ve been exposed to the virus who was asymptomatic, who showed no sign, so they would’ve not tested”.
International studies show varying results but it is suggested that about 30 percent of people with COVID-19 never develop symptoms. If that holds true here, then we would have experienced around just short of 17,000 cases here in The Bahamas so far.
That, obviously, is far short of the 200,000 figure for herd immunity if we rely on only 120,000 vaccinations.
The Tribune has alone among Bahamian media repeatedly reported based on the globally accepted Our World In Data statistics on the likely infection rates that the declared numbers of confirmed cases is massively below the number given on the daily cases update.
Even if the asymptomatic rate is higher, we would have seen that outcome in a much greater rate of deaths.
So it looks to us as if those numbers are coming up short.
Back when Mr Wells was in the PLP, Prime Minister Dr Minnis said that Parliamentarians used to call him Einstein and described him as “intelligent and methodical”.
We suggest that Einstein might need to double check his maths.
Cruise windfall
There are grounds for optimism elsewhere. Royal Caribbean is aiming to triple its Bahamian arrivals to six million by 2030.
That extra four million passengers could bring an extra $1bn in spending that stays with Bahamian companies, the company’s vice-president of government relations for the Americas predicted yesterday.
Part of it is that the industry is having to seek out new home ports outside the US – with The Bahamas right in line to benefit.
Ports in Florida are at full capacity, and those in Texas and Louisiana are not far behind. America’s shortfall is our windfall.
As we look to emerging from COVID-19, this is exactly the type of news we want to hear, and we must do all we can to put Bahamian businesses in a position to benefit from such a move.
We’ve been experiencing hard times so long that it’s been hard to imagine a bright future – but news such as this could really bring that future to our doorstep.
Comments
ohdrap4 2 years, 11 months ago
Their tongues must have been stuck in their cheeks.
birdiestrachan 2 years, 11 months ago
Wells lies. and he lies a lot. He talks fast and foolish
DonAnthony 2 years, 11 months ago
Of course he does he is a former PLP...he was trained by the best liars the Bahamas has ever produced.
ohdrap4 2 years, 11 months ago
From an old calypso: Ut was a big lying competition To see who they will crown as lying champion
Liars from all parts of the West Indies Big shot liars from all them foreign countries
The Outrageous say that he knew a tailor Comes to making suit, the man is a master If you show him a man coming 'round a corner He could make him a suit and don't even measure And talking 'bout suit sitting down correct Expertly made and fitting perfect He used to sew for Shakespeare, make suit for Hamlet And up to this day he ent make a mistake yet! You know the crowd went wild, they couldn't cool down I say Liar, The Lion losing the crown The judges brought the crowd back to order
And asked the Lion to lie 'bout a tailor He say, my man is the best, Rolfie is his name Cutting cloth, making suit is his game Don't show him the man, my tailor is class Just show him the corner where the fella pass And he go make a suit, that is tailor! You hear lie? King Liar!
John 2 years, 11 months ago
Can someone please explain: how come there is a sudden decline in the numbers if corona cases in India and Brazil when there’s been no mass vaccinations in these countries yet? How come most African nations didn’t get the third wave of Covid-19 and their numbers remain relatively low and the numbers of deaths negligible? And whilst the US numbers are down by over 90 percent under last year’s numbers, many of the decline is in areas where there hasn’t been mass vaccinations. And in areas where there were mass vaccinations persons are now required to wear masks as it was considered unsafe for even vaccinated persons to not wear masks.
ThisIsOurs 2 years, 11 months ago
no tourists?
tribanon 2 years, 11 months ago
To be more specific, no behemoth floating hotels that serve as ideal incubators for all kinds of deadly pathogens.
happyfly 2 years, 11 months ago
120,000 is quite a lot of people if it turns out that there is some kind of negative long term side effect from the experimental, non-FDA approved, MRNA gene therapy that they are calling a "vax"
Clamshell 2 years, 11 months ago
Uh ... as the vaccines have just been in play for a couple of months, how do you argue that they have “negative long-term side effects.” Long-term? How you know that? In short ... you’re a moron.
tribanon 2 years, 11 months ago
Huh? And how do you @Clamshell argue that these mRNA vaccines are safe when they were manufactured at warp speed and released for experimental use on a voluntary basis because no long term studies were conducted to identify their potentially harmful long term side effects? @happyfly's concerns are very genuine and on point.
ohdrap4 2 years, 11 months ago
He did not say there ARE long term effects. He said IF IF IF it turns put that there are.
You do not know that there will not be any either.
Sigh. No one understands the IF statement. That is why they keep saying "WOULD HAVE".
I remember the weight loss drug phen-fen, took a little while to figure out people were dropping dead.
Clamshell 2 years, 11 months ago
Covid also has a long-term side-effect. It’s called “dead”. Ask 600,000 Americans. Oh, right — you can’t ask them ‘cause they’re ... dead.
tribanon 2 years, 11 months ago
Don't be silly. Death is not a 'long term side effect' of the Wuhan Virus. The relatively few who die from it usually do so within a week or two. But's let's all hope and pray that a long term side effect of these warp speed developed experimental mRNA vaccines does not end up being pre-mature death.
newcitizen 2 years, 11 months ago
And here it is, Well's is just being realistic as to how many people have suddenly become scientific scholars in this country and are now to smart for their own good.
Happyfly, just happy to spout misinformation, considering we don't even have access to mRNA vaccines here at the moment.
ohdrap4 2 years, 11 months ago
I do not know how many are scientific scholars. But I know Wells is not one of them.
Doctors have always had trouble accepting they could be wrong and have looked at the googling patients with disdain.
The fact is doctors have steadily lost their aura of authority and much more so after Covid. Just like them religious pastors.
John 2 years, 11 months ago
Explain this : More than NINETY PERCENT of persons that tested positive for Covid-19 have recovered. Barely 2 percent have died and 10 percent of the cases remain active with some 50 people hospitalized. These were the basic case distribution since last year. In fact with more people getting the virus, less are getting seriously ill. And this was BEFORE the vaccinations began in this country. Doctors and nurses and police and retail store workers and bank tellers are no longer getting sick or testing positive in droves. Doesn’t this indicate that the population has developed some sort of herd immunity or resistance to the virus?
carltonr61 2 years, 11 months ago
441 days now in dictators home prison, spiritually, financially, emotionally. We are all so sick of the Minnis disease.
tribanon 2 years, 11 months ago
Complete and utter BS by The Tribune' editorial staff, and they all know it to be so!
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