If the government of Guam and the Department of Public Health and Social Services have a plan to open Guam’s economy to tourism by May, they should detail it and share it.
A plan is like a budget — you aim to come close, but without it you are simply whistling in the wind.
We have heard the frustration of Carl Gutierrez and Gerry Perez at the Guam Visitors Bureau. With a strong board of industry professionals now installed we look to them to guide GVB. Pardon our skepticism, but the alternative — yet another group of government agencies now responsible for getting tourists to Guam — all of whose heads serve at the pleasure of the governor — may not cut it.
Similarly, Public Health should share its plans for the vaccination road map to get us to the point where we have “herd immunity” by July 21.
An estimate of the per monthly dose and where that would take the island by April, May and June is a reasonable expectation.
The latest news is that some 6,000 to 7,000 people aged 55 and above have not received their second shot. While many of those have booked appointments for the week of March 8, we do not know how many have not.
Stepping up
PMC Investments and its leadership team are to be congratulated for not only having a plan, but executing it.
The group is reinvesting into our economy in a tangible way through upgrading stores and offering welcome. We hope that PMC’s pharmacy arm — Super Drug does receive sufficient vaccinations to further decentralize the efforts at the University of Guam Fieldhouse to the private sector, and the clinics who have stepped up receive an allocation also.
While the Guam National Guard is serving the community and seeing the fieldhouse vaccinations through efficiently, the wider the effort, the better the result, and the less stress for our residents. The stories of hours-long waits at Okkodo High School are still deterring people from going to a mass site like the fieldhouse. mbj
