The COVID-19 face mask mandate came to an end for the vast majority of Bahamians on Saturday.
Those who have been agitating for the end of the mandate will be especially pleased that this requirement has gone the way of the requirement for COVID-19 vaccinations to enter the country.
Since Saturday, only individuals visiting or working at healthcare institutions, residential facilities for the elderly and children attending classes at non-exempted schools are required to wear face masks.
The jury is still out on the usefulness of several other methodologies adopted in the early days of the pandemic, like washing and disinfecting food items brought into the home and disinfecting shoes at the entryway to homes, in stemming new infections.
Importantly, medical experts advise that vaccinations are the best means of reducing the risk of infections as is evident by the declining numbers of new infections among high-vaccinated populations in North America and in Western Europe and Asia.
In particular, experts advise that people who are not vaccinated are at a greater risk of dying from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated.
When most countries in North America and Western Europe dropped their mask mandates earlier this year, they had recorded anti-COVID vaccination rates of well over 70 percent of their populations as compared to the 41 percent vaccination rate recorded in The Bahamas at the end of last month.
The large discrepancy between vaccination uptakes here as opposed to in those countries is cause for pause.
Bahamians will be well advised to consider the risks to their health that continue to exist when mingling in largely unvaccinated groups of individuals.
This is especially so for the elderly and for those with serious comorbidities like diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure and heart and lung ailments. Such individuals should be encouraged to continue to wear face masks and to strictly adhere to sanitizing and social distancing recommendations when in highly populated public spaces.
The reality is that the COVID pandemic persists. In the United States, where President Joe Biden announced that the pandemic was over, as many as 54,000 new COVID-19 infections were recorded daily in September and as many as 400 COVID-related deaths were recorded each day last month.
We have noted in this space previously that the government has not informed the public of any science-based conditions that informed its decision to reverse its mask policy, especially in the face of the continued reluctance of the population to become vaccinated and as new infections continue to be detected and additional lives are lost to the disease.
We look forward to government’s articulation of its action plan particularly as we move into what is traditionally a high flu and cold season.
Downtown: A sense of abandonment
Works commenced under a previous government are underway to redevelop Nassau’s harbor front including Prince George Wharf and Rawson Square.
The development is expected to return some of the appeal associated with the city’s past glory days. Unfortunately, interim accommodations for surrey horse carriages and car parking at the site of the demolished Adderley and Churchill buildings are less than welcoming to patrons of the city.
Lamentably, Arawak Cay, at the western entrance to the city, has been allowed to become the resting place for rusted, dilapidated barges and boats and for the off-loading of sand barges marring vistas from West Bay Street, the Fish Fry and the Western Esplanade, the latter itself requiring better management and organization.
And Bay Street, east of East Street, has become a sorry mess lined with decayed and abandoned buildings crying out for attention from both private and public owners.
Sadly, having caused the removal of all container shipping from Bay Street in 2012 to make way for the city’s redevelopment, it now appears that the former Symonette Shipyard property is being used as a storage site for hundreds of transshipment containers.
