DR DUANE SANDS
By LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
FORMER Health Minister Dr Duane Sands yesterday cautioned local officials to “get ready” for a potential increase of COVID-19 cases, insisting a fourth wave of the disease was imminent.
Speaking to The Tribune Dr Sands stressed that now is not the time for Bahamians to let their guard down despite current low case numbers.
Pointing to rising infection rates in the United States and Europe, the former member of Parliament said experience has often shown what happens to neighbouring countries “is a reasonable predictor” of what is to come here.
He said: “Let me say that I am absolutely grateful for the reduction in the number of confirmed cases that we’ve recorded over the last weeks and the reduction in the number of hospitalised patients, but already I think we’re starting to see some movement in the other direction in terms of the number of cases presenting to the various facilities.”
“Experience has shown us what happens in Europe and what happens in the United States is a reasonable predictor of what is likely to happen in The Bahamas and so, as goes the rest of the world, I believe we’re going to see a fourth wave and it beholds us to learn the lessons that other people have learned with horrible consequences.
“… And so, the methods should be let us get ready, let us hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst and that means to get vaccinated, adhere rigidly to the disciplinary approaches that work - social distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitisation, avoiding large crowds, etc, you know the drill.”
The former Cabinet minister spoke after the Ministry of Health confirmed 15 new cases on its November 23 dashboard, bringing the nation’s total count to 22,696.
Despite low double digits being recorded, Dr Sands said it’s important that Bahamians remain alert and not ignore the signs of a potential uptick.
“We have 15 confirmed cases for yesterday that was reported today but the challenge is once you start to see this uptick, don’t ignore it,” Dr Sands cautioned.
“Don’t believe that somehow this is a flu. We saw the dip to three and four cases a day but now it’s in the double digits. With what’s happening in the United States to our north and what’s happening in Europe and Great Britain, we ignore this at our own peril.”
Dr Sands also explained that battling a fourth wave when the nation’s healthcare system has barely recovered from its third fight with the disease could result in negative impacts.
“Our healthcare system has been badly battered and now needs some time using the Bahamian vernacular ‘to catch itself’ and if we don’t have that time to catch itself, then battling that fourth wave when people are battle weary… you’re talking about a different battle now,” he said.
Concerns about a fourth wave come as the Davis administration continues to further reopen the Bahamian economy.
Since being elected to office, the government has eliminated the national curfew and allowed businesses that were ordered closed at the onset of the pandemic to re-open among other things.
Asked if he thought officials may have acted too soon in view of concerns about another surge, Dr Sands did not directly answer, but agreed they should take a cautious approach.
“I think that my language has been very consistent that we cannot afford to let our guards down and we have seen this before,” he said. “We have seen this movie before so let us avoid getting giddy with increasing numbers of tourists and so forth. That is incredibly important and economic activity is necessary if we’re going to survive but let’s do it smart.
“Let’s do it in a disciplinary way and let’s demonstrate to the world what best practices for COVID means. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but I think just to the casual observer, if you look out there now the appearance is there is no real COVID issue in The Bahamas. It’s like we have taken the approach that ‘hey, COVID gone’ and that is the furthest thing from the truth.”
He continued: “It’s a very challenging balancing act. How do you restore confidence and how do you rev up an ailing economy? How do you encourage investment? How do you get businesses to have a level of optimism that they’re willing to take risks again and invest? But you have to balance that as always with the very real issue of COVID coming back with a vengeance the way it is in Europe and the way it is in the United States.”
Dr Sands also commented on the declining vaccination rates, noting it as a major concern.
He also said it would be a” horrible scene” if vaccine doses were to expire before being administered to the public.
“We are a under-vaccinated country right now with fully vaccinated people accounting for only 40 percent. The number of people that have been vaccinated over the last four, six to eight weeks – except for one week – was below 10,000,” he added.
“There has a been steady reduction in the number of people vaccinated since September 25 and so if you’re only immunising 5,000 people a week, you do the arithmetic. With the number of doses that we have and are scheduled to receive, we could find ourselves in a situation where we end up wasting or discarding vaccines that many countries are not fortunate enough to have access to.”
The latest vaccine tracker says 143,434 people in The Bahamas have been fully vaccinated against the virus, while 141,983 have received at least one vaccine dose.
Comments
lunalula 2 years, 5 months ago
Non-covid related deaths are on the rise. You can see it first hand in out island communities where the graveyard is now the hot spot to gather on the weekends. The obituary section is filled with healthy-looking 20, 30, 40 and 50 year olds. They are going to blame the increase of deaths from the experimental jab on a "fourth wave". Wake up people.
CoolCatBD 2 years, 5 months ago
Not a laughing matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xROIC...">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xROIC...
Ivermectin Science Based Comparison???
tribanon 2 years, 5 months ago
Do you even know that YouTube is owned by that very sinister and evil enterprise known as Google or Google Alphabet? They heavily filter just about everything that comes your way to the paint the picture they want you to see and give you the narrative they want you to hear. Think of all Google products, especially Google Search, as modern day brainwashing of the worst kind by another name. LOL
dwanderer 2 years, 5 months ago
It's been six months since the 'initial' group of persons in the country received their second dose of AstraZeneca. Now that the demand has fallen, can the present vaccines on hand be offered as booster shots to those who've reached their sixth month mark before the vaccines expire?
CoolCatBD 2 years, 5 months ago
They shouldn't let the vaccine go to waste, if the stubborn won't take it, give it to the people who wants it! Just a note don't hold me to it, AstraZeneca people may have to take a Pfizer booster.
bcitizen 2 years, 5 months ago
The same Phizer that the FDA following a FOI request has asked a court to not release all the clinical data used for its approval until 2076? Sounds legit.
CoolCatBD 2 years, 5 months ago
Why 55 years, wouldn't 50 years be OK!!!!
ohdrap4 2 years, 5 months ago
DONT WASTE THE VACCINES. DOGS REQUIRE 10 DOSES. THE POTCAKES CAN FINISH THAT IN NO TIME.
joeblow 2 years, 5 months ago
... actually, 6 months is when the "vaccinated" are most likely to be vulnerable to covid because of falling antibody levels. The next wave will be among the so called "vaccinated", because that is the trend in highly "vaccinated countries". People sill do not realize they have been duped!
carltonr61 2 years, 5 months ago
UDA citizens don't want so just do what.
carltonr61 2 years, 5 months ago
https://www.rt.com/news/541216-who-he...">https://www.rt.com/news/541216-who-he...
Have Sands read WHO/PAHO memo.
bahamianson 2 years, 5 months ago
Why is he commenting ? Do we not have a minister of health? I guess I need to call a press conference
ThisIsOurs 2 years, 5 months ago
Agree. Have said consistently we are 3-6 months behind spikes in Europe
And this would be our fivth wave. The fourth wave started in July along wigh homeporting. Dr Sands himself pointed to the end of the 3rd wave mid June.
GodSpeed 2 years, 5 months ago
yeah, yeah. It's not going away whether you take the bioweapon vaccine or not.
ThisIsOurs 2 years, 5 months ago
The one thing about this pandemic that completely escapes me is the absence of national numbers.
This is a national public health crisis. Every medical institution should BY LAW be required to report standardized statistics on infections, adverse vaccine reactions and deaths. But 2 years in and we are still being subjected to numbers with heading "Princess Margaret Hospital.
How is this possible? Maybe Patient-0 is reporting to Doctors or some private facility
M0J0 2 years, 5 months ago
Crazy man
carltonr61 2 years, 5 months ago
Sounds like he have a Covid duster plane.
whogothere 2 years, 5 months ago
Portugal, with 88% fully vaccinated, the highest rate on Earth, has now returned to a "state of calamity" with mask mandates, vaccine passports, and mandatory testing to enter certain accommodations.
Alas, there's no vaccine for hysteria.
http://www.news.cn/english/europe/202...">http://www.news.cn/english/europe/202...
John 2 years, 5 months ago
Why is Duane Sands still trying to prostitute vaccines? Countries all around the world are reporting that the fourth wave is affecting vaccinated people as much as unvaccinated people and there are more breakthrough cases amongst persons who took the booster shot than there was under the Delta wave? Disbursed Sands is giving people a false sense of security:hope that if they take the vaccines, everything will be ok. Austria even tried locking down unvaccinated persons only and levying heavy fines on those who violated the lockdown. And their FOUy WAVE got worse ( among the vaccinated) and they are now in FULL LOCKDOWN! Officials in Germany advises that the most effective defense against the fourth wave is the wearing of masks by everyone and always when in public. Not vaccines, not booster shots but wearing of masks. They further warn that the fourth wave should meet this defense in place along with the other pre-vaccine measures. The fourth wave is rapid moving and if you atty to put safety measures w place after it already too late. Even vaccinated people here are now being hospitalized. And cases among persons who recently traveled are also up. Returning residents should be urged to isolate then take at least a rapid covid test. If Duane Sands wants to push the vaccine agenda, being driven by whatever motivates, at least be honest with the people.
John 2 years, 5 months ago
And the experts, even some who are linked to the vaccines manufacturers, say if the distribution of vaccines was not mishandled, the pandemic may not be as intense. The experts say there should never have been an attempt to vaccinate everyone. And persons who had the virus and fully recovered should never have been vaccinated. Not only did they have the greatest resistance to the virus and the ability to adapt to new strains, but they contribute to herd immunity and help the rest of the population fight the virus. Fauci and his band of clowns who can’t be trusted (and sleeping Joe Biden and Duane Sandsare with them). are preaching the opposite. They are saying that unless more people get vaccinated (some say everyone ), the virus cannot be defeated. But viral experts say mass vaccinations will put more pressure on the virus and cause it to mutate even more. This is presently being experienced in Europe in the fouy wave where some 35 nee variants have already been identified.
ohdrap4 2 years, 5 months ago
Duane Sands is an alarmist, and not a virologist.
Anyways, John, check youtube. Vaccine does not stop new SA variant.
Britain and Germany have closed borders to several african countries.
Returning germans must take pcr, and quarentine, even fully vaccinated.
carltonr61 2 years, 5 months ago
@4 you beat me to SA new scare seems he have advanced notice of. That payroll by the Computer Guy sure is huge. Guess our doctor is playing the Gringe role for Christmas in order to cancel all that God made along with the global anti God elites. Amazing. The WHO having a meeting to possibly begin another phase of reset to New and Emerging anti human race Technology. The computer digital currencies seems to cannot work without humans generating thar wealth so they have shot themselves in the foot. The digital coins stock just dropped on media hysterical fears of another then another then another virus Armageddon apocalyptic by End Of Earthers doomsday cult.
carltonr61 2 years, 5 months ago
WHO just put back lockdown decision for a few days or weeks. Guess the script has changed on SA variant that was declared even worst than Alfa without a study just a feeling . imagine the world back on lockdowns on a hunch. Calls for new vaccine for the vaccinated and unvaccinated. EU media fearmungering world-wide media mafia is in full swing.
tribanon 2 years, 5 months ago
None of this is going to end until the multi-billionaire creators of these bio-weoponized viruses and their big pharma and bio-tech partners are brought to justice for crimes committed against humanity. That includes the likes of Bill Gates, Dr. Fauci and many others like them who are engaged in sinister and evil human population control experiments.
The cats out the bag now and these demented billionaire monsters can no longer label the rest of us as crazy conspiracy theorists. Where is Bill Gates hiding these days? Is he busy working with his Communist Chines friends on the unleashing of COVID-666 as a means of downsizing the global population from 8+ billion people to not more than 5 billion people? He certainly remains overly concerned that the world's limited resources cannot support more than 5 billion people, even from a global climate control standpoint.
licks2 2 years, 5 months ago
PM Davis them een need to "look" any place else for the "problem" why Bahamians een want to take the vaccines any more. . .go no farther than this site!! What big buncha nonsese yinna talking around here???
stillwaters 2 years, 5 months ago
Time ......time measured in weeks....Will tell the true story of whether Dr Duane Sands or the commenters on this blog are correct in their views. Only a matter of time ........
tribanon 2 years, 5 months ago
You're right, time will tell all there is to tell. And another wave of an entirely new variant of the Wuhan virus, one resistant to current mRNA vaccines, would only serve to vindicate what many of us so called conspiracy theorists have all along been saying.
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