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Old 21-07-2020, 17:48   #31
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

https://twitter.com/gryking/status/1285458825596874755
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Old 21-07-2020, 17:59   #32
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

Too bad the tests are unreliable.
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Old 21-07-2020, 17:59   #33
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by chris mac View Post
I could be wrong, I haven't really checked for a week or so, but I beleive we can still fly to many American cities without problem. Some require a quarantine. The border closure southbound is mostly land and water crossing. Coming back obviously requires a quarantine so basic tourism/holiday would not justify that.
Going back to our boat(virginia) we are told is pretty simple. Although we are waiting to see just how bad it gets before we decide

I'm sure you're correct Chris. The US has been allowing Canadians to fly across the border, as the reverse seems to be true as well. There are supposed to be limited to "essential travel", but I guess everyone thinks their travel is essential.
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:13   #34
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by Mike OReilly View Post
Exactly right. I think it would be interesting to know how they came to their decision. I know here in Canada we've decided to bar most non-essential travel for Americans. That includes people wanting to sail here.

Indeed, Canada is suffering Big Time over the loss of tourism dollars. Some of our areas and provinces rely heavily on American tourists. It hurts. But we've made the decision to try hard to control the virus. So far, we're doing pretty good.

BTW, this is a joint agreement by both sides of the border. I believe Canadians are treated the same by the USA.
And yet unless I’m mistaken many, many trucks pass over the border daily, and those aren’t driverless trucks.
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:17   #35
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by a64pilot View Post
And yet unless I’m mistaken many, many trucks pass over the border daily, and those aren’t driverless trucks.

The border is closed to non-essential travel. Tourism is not considered essential, at least not in Canada. But the Bahamas might have a different calculation.
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:19   #36
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by s/v Jedi View Post
That was the lockdowns and curfews. They start that on Grand Bahama Island again for a 2-week period. May come to the US as well when the hospitals and morgues are full...
First you say there is not any craziness like in the US.
I’ve not seen any craziness, not at all, except for masks and bars being closed, it’s business as normal, no bring out your dead wagons or overflowing morgues. Which isn’t to say it won’t happen, but it’s beginning to thankfully look like it’s not.
Attached photo is a screen shot of the official transcript of the 6 apr speech. I added nothing to it, the government bolded it, not me. The link is also attached
https://www.bahamas.gov.bs/wps/wcm/c...df?MOD=AJPERES
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:29   #37
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by Mike OReilly View Post
The border is closed to non-essential travel. Tourism is not considered essential, at least not in Canada. But the Bahamas might have a different calculation.
I understand. These lockdowns, aren’t really lockdowns. The Bahamas came pretty close though, excepting for the pool boys and lawn maintenance anyway.
The Iron Curtain, now that was a lockdown
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:40   #38
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by a64pilot View Post
I understand. These lockdowns, aren’t really lockdowns. The Bahamas came pretty close though, excepting for the pool boys and lawn maintenance anyway.
The Iron Curtain, now that was a lockdown
Yes, I suppose... I'm not clear what your point is. There have been no absolute, complete, 100%, lockdowns anywhere that I'm aware of. But most countries who have taken this pandemic seriously have attempted to greatly reduce the flow of people in and out. The objective is to bring it to a level where monitoring and controls can have a reasonable chance of success.

I'm assuming the Bahamian government has done the same analysis, and has decided it can manage the small inflow of people from personal boats (cruisers), but not the massive influx from large commercial transports.

It's easier logistically and bureaucratically to simply bar almost everyone from a certain country. It's interesting that the Bahamas is taking a different tack.
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Old 21-07-2020, 18:48   #39
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

You let 30,000 thousand in a day, that’s not keeping much of anything out is it?
Yep, there are 30,000 trucks that cross that border every day, assuming each truck has a driver, often two, then that’s more than 30,000 people a day, every day.
https://theconversation.com/keep-on-...navirus-134223

Point is, that’s not a lockdown, not even remotely close. With that many crossing daily, what’s the point of restricting travel? They cross and spread out all over Canada. 30,000 a day.
If you wanted to, you could drop trailers at the border and Canadian trucks with Canadian drivers continue on, same for the US side, so the desire to lockdown really isn’t there.
But there seems to be a desire to make the appearance of locking down?

On edit, I have no idea if the linked article is true or not, it’s the first Google hit was all.
Also maybe it’s “only” 15,000 a day for Canada, assuming it’s a 50/50 spilt, I have no idea about that either.
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:01   #40
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by a64pilot View Post
You let 30,000 thousand in a day, that’s not keeping much of anything out is it?
Yep, there are 30,000 trucks that cross that border every day, assuming each truck has a driver, often two, then that’s more than 30,000 people a day, every day.
https://theconversation.com/keep-on-...navirus-134223

Point is, that’s not a lockdown, not even remotely close. With that many crossing daily, what’s the point of restricting travel? They cross and spread out all over Canada. 30,000 a day.
If you wanted to, you could drop trailers at the border and Canadian trucks with Canadian drivers continue on, same for the US side, so the desire to lockdown really isn’t there.
But there seems to be a desire to make the appearance of locking down?

On edit, I have no idea if the linked article is true or not, it’s the first Google hit was all.
Also maybe it’s “only” 15,000 a day for Canada, assuming it’s a 50/50 spilt, I have no idea about that either.
Again, I'm not clear what you're trying to say. That the Canadian (and US) border restrictions are not 100%? Yes, we know that. This is by design.

I assume your 30,000 number is accurate, but normally there would be hundreds of thousands of crossings each day, so this is a significant reduction. And since it is limited to commercial traffic which is already highly regulated and monitored, the calculus has been that this constitutes a reasonable risk vs the benefits.

But Canada (and the US) have decided that it is an unreasonable risk to allow private boaters to enter their countries right now. This is why I'm curious what Bahamian government's calculation was/is.
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:08   #41
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

[QUOTE=Mike OReilly;3190902

My question is exactly as phrased. I'm curious how these folks, who are between a rock and hard place, made their decision.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure it was a political decision void of any science.
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:15   #42
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

I thought I was clear what I had to say, it was if your allowing 15,000 people a day to cross and spread alll over your country, that’s not actually controlling anything.
Then I pointed out that if the desire were to actually close borders, it would be as easy a dropping and picking up trailers, which if you have ever driven a truck is as easy as filling up with fuel, nothing to it.
Wouldn’t even be much dead heading either.
If the desire were really close the border, at least from a trucking standpoint, it wouldn’t be hard, not really.

So I’m saying that the desire to close the border isn’t in actuality very strong, I’m postulating that the desire is to make a show of closing the border in order to placate people.

What’s the Bahama’s thinking? I have no idea really, up until the speech of 6 Apr, private yachts were ignored, but on the 6 of apr, the intent was made pretty clear, at least to me.
However is the Pandemic over? I would say not, but on the 6 of Apr, the statement was made that those people need to go home and not return until after the pandemic was over.

The Bahamas isn’t immune to politics or special interest groups anymore than any other Country.
My guess is that if the virus spreads they may be back to 6 apr?
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:25   #43
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

Border closings are not possible in a global economy. Closing border kicks the ball down the road and gives the little people hope but it's not a realistic solution. We can't just isolate until a vaccine, that may never materialize, becomes available on large scale. A few million doses doesn't put a dent in what will be needed. Try billions. The solution is a long ways off.
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:32   #44
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Originally Posted by a64pilot View Post
I thought I was clear what I had to say, it was if your allowing 15,000 people a day to cross and spread alll over your country, that’s not actually controlling anything.
Then I pointed out that if the desire were to actually close borders, it would be as easy a dropping and picking up trailers, which if you have ever driven a truck is as easy as filling up with fuel, nothing to it.
Wouldn’t even be much dead heading either.
If the desire were really close the border, at least from a trucking standpoint, it wouldn’t be hard, not really.

So I’m saying that the desire to close the border isn’t in actuality very strong, I’m postulating that the desire is to make a show of closing the border in order to placate people.

What’s the Bahama’s thinking? I have no idea really, up until the speech of 6 Apr, private yachts were ignored, but on the 6 of apr, the intent was made pretty clear, at least to me.
However is the Pandemic over? I would say not, but on the 6 of Apr, the statement was made that those people need to go home and not return until after the pandemic was over.

The Bahamas isn’t immune to politics or special interest groups anymore than any other Country.
My guess is that if the virus spreads they may be back to 6 apr?

But that's not how it works. When truckers cross our borders they go through strict assessment and monitoring. They are not simply free to go all over the country. I thought I was pretty clear on that. You seem to be suggesting that the "essential" traffic is somehow evidence for some sort of lockdown charade. You are the first to suggest this. It's a risk assessment.



I have no idea how viable your idea would be regarding the dropping of trailers at the border, and I suspect neither do you. If it were that simple I have confidence it would have been done that way.



Canada and the USA closed the border to non-essential travel in an attempt to better control the spread of the disease. At least in Canada this has certainly happened.
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Old 21-07-2020, 19:46   #45
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Re: Bahamas closes borders to U.S. tourists after COVID-19 cases spike; others still

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Too bad the tests are unreliable.
Even if they were only 80% accurate with respect to false negatives, which are what we're really concerned about, it would still be a heck of a lot better than either no tests or the silliness of getting a really accurate test that takes 8 days to get results back from at which point it's really only a historical curiosity. Which is where we were last week when I went through the whole gameshow to travel there.
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