A LOCAL religious leader on Abaco is urging Bahamians to take COVID-19 seriously after claiming to have lost over a dozen friends and other community members to the virus in the last two weeks.

Abaco resident Bishop Silbert Mills described the COVID-19 situation on the island as worrisome and said the recent wave of deaths there speaks to the seriousness of the disease.

“We had a dozen people die in Abaco in the past two weeks and one died just within the last hour from Green Turtle Cay,” he said. “And so this is compelling that people are now taking this seriously and they have seen so many people who could’ve been here had it not been for COVID-19.”

Bishop Mills said it’s disheartening to see so many Abaconians losing their battles to COVID-19, only after having just survived the crisis of Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

He said one recent COVID-19 related death that really hit him hard was the loss of his former church member and musician, Tameco McHardy.

The 46-year-old—who survived Dorian—lost his short battle with the disease earlier this week after contracting it in the US.

Describing his character, Bishop Mills said: “He was one of the finest musicians that you would come across where he knew just not the contemporary song but he had a love for the old hymns and he could play them without any kind of rehearsal and he knew just how to stick his music in with the service.

“He was a very quiet person, and he also wrote music and he could’ve arranged stuff and make it almost sound original when he would arrange his music. He played with a couple of the local bands. He had a love for gospel music.”

According to close friends, many people were touched by his music.

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