Air-bridge arrivals will be quarantined
(CNS): Any residents returning to Cayman on the special British Airways flight expected from London next week will not be allowed to self-isolate but will be placed in mandatory government quarantine. Following some panic in the community after the announcement about the flight yesterday, government has confirmed that quarantine is a condition of return. Premier Alden McLaughlin warned people that, now Cayman has community spread, the returners pose less risk than shopping in Foster’s.
He urged people to “stop obsessing” about the risk posed by those who will be forced into quarantine when they return, while those panicking are, themselves, chatting with friends in the supermarket. McLaughlin reminded the community that those returning are mostly Caymanian students and asked them to consider how would they feel if it was their family member who was stranded overseas.
He said there had been around 120 requests from people in the UK wanting to come back but it is possible that not all will qualify to return. “We are not bringing back visitors,” he said emphatically.
The main purpose of this air-bridge is not to bring people back to Cayman but to bring in hospital and emergency supplies, then take back people who want to leave, the premier said. He noted that people who wanted to go should be able do so, as it is increasingly apparent that Cayman will not be open for business for a while.
“There are a significant number of people here who want to leave and we are encouraging them to leave,” McLaughlin said. “The less people there are here, the easier in general terms it becomes for us to manage this crisis.”
He stressed the mandatory quarantine and monitoring by government and said anyone who gets on the plane in London must understand that. He noted that, so far, none of the students who returned this month have tested positive during their isolation and they are almost at the end of that period.
Given the news that there is community transmission, the premier said, “There is a far greater risk of you contracting COVID-19 in Cayman from going to the supermarket or to the bank or hanging out with folk than it will be of you contracting it from persons who are in mandatory quarantine for fourteen days.”
He said they will pose less risk to the community than those moving freely and hanging together in groups who are more likely to be vectors. McLaughlin said the point that he had been making all along was that everyone needs to stay home, wash hands and practice social distancing if Cayman is to avoid the massive crisis seen in other countries.
“We need to obsess about what we are doing and how we are living when we go out unnecessarily,” he said, adding, “I don’t know where they are going as most places are supposed to be closed,”
McLaughlin said that in addition to the air-bridge for people wanting to go to London, as time goes on Cayman Airways might be deployed where possible to take other people back to countries in the region. With Cayman likely to be in these current circumstances for as long as two months, people will want to leave and government also wants them to leave to alleviate the pressure.
“Over the course of the next few weeks I expect we will wind up with hundreds of people who come to the realization that not only do they not have work now but it is unlikely they are going to have work in Cayman for some time to come, especially those in tourism,” he said.
McLaughlin added that it would be a long time before the tourism industry will be back because of what is happening around the world. Even if Cayman is able to manage the virus so there is not massive community spread, it is still going to be a long time before tourism bounces back.
“The more people that we can get out of here… the better off everyone will be. If they don’t have the means to look after themselves here it means government will have to do so,” he said.
To the extent that it is possible, government would help people leave, he said but warned that there were hurdles because many airports around the world are now closed. But where government can offer the opportunity to leave, it will, McLaughlin said, because it is going to get a lot more difficult for people here who worked in the tourism sector.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
Do we know if incoming passengers are being charged to be on this flight, or are those wanting to leave and being charged 500 to do so subsidising them?
CNS can you ask Dr. Lee tomorrow if any of the current cases came from the BA flights particularly those that were supposed to isolate?
Further, was anything done to register and monitor these folks (return BA flights) upon their return from London?
Do we know of any that were found to be violating the “self isolation order” imposed by the government as a condition of their return and were they warned for prosecution?
Are we quarantining (not asking to self isolate) and monitoring the entire family if one member is positive? If other members of the family are free to roam amongst us there is a greater chance of the spread.
CNS: Sorry, we can’t promise to ask all the questions sent to us but you can send them directly via the CIG Facebook page messenger.
6.54pm I presume you mean flights before OR was closed, but why are you obsessing about only the BA flights. As far as the current cases are concerned a number apparently relate to extended families in Cayman where some have already tested positive and have passed the virus to other family members.You should be asking questions about these cases such as why, once they were found positive were they not all quarantined in a similar fashion to what is planned for those arriving on next week’s BA flight.
They are not going to tell anyone this information. As the Governor said yesterday, this is confidential information and you are not entitled to it. If they told you that, you could potentially track down or harass people recently returned from UK or anywhere, and why would you? Its not allowed. You would not like it if it was you being harassed.
Ordinarily I would agree with patient confidentiality but with the new cases could they not let us know who they are or where they have been so we can tell the medics that we could have come into contact with them. Waiting for the time it takes for them to track us down means we could be spreading it further when we visit the supermarket.
And how would you know if had encountered them in the shops? Or they walked past you? Or you touched a surface they had touched? Whereas I have a sneaking suspicion that if the government revealed the identities of people there would be pitchforks and burning torches outside their homes and social ostracism whether they had self isolated or not.
I meant to help the medics. If the patients last name began with A and mine with L then there is no way I had contact at the supermarket, or if both last names begin with A and they went to Hurleys and I went to Fosters then we have just cut down the numbers for the medics to track. I take your point of Caymankind and pitchforks though.
Not buying it…confidential is confidential so never going to happen.
Excellent job Premier and Governor !
I agree. However, who in the world put Seymour as Minister of Health? What an absolute embarassment! Could barely watch and listen to the man fumble and not manage to read from ‘his script’. Would be funny if not so bloody pathetic.
Could t agree more, it’s shambolic.
There’s so many cars on the road. This is going to end in disaster.
I live by a highway and you would think its business as usual.
In Little Cayman as well…Police working from home????
Has the government given any consideration to allowing one of the stuck cruise ships to land and also go into mandatory quarantine? Our first concern should be residents, but I don’t think the cruise ship industry will ever recover when people have been trapped on them for a number of weeks and ports have been turning them away. I know there is lots to consider, e.g. how do they leave after mandatory quarantine?, but I think if we continue to have it under control and the cruise ship continues to be stuck, we should let ONE in based on humanitarian reasons. It sounds absolutely awful for those people on those boats right now.
Not a chance.
And what do you do when the passengers on board become ill and require hospitalization ? We don’t even have enough test kits or PPE to deal with our island population and you want to add on several thousand additional patients to stretch the system? Quite apart from the obvious question – how would we actually quarantine several thousand people? Where are the facilities in Cayman for that? Where are the staff to supervise it? Your heart is in the right place but surely you must see that it’s not practical
If only there were big buildings capable of housing thousands of visitors in Cayman… If only we were the kind of place prepared to handle cruise ship passengers en masse.
Why would you need to test them? If they had symptoms, you could consider them positive. What information would be gained by testing them?
Not all are sick, and so what proportion would require hospitalisation? In two weeks we will have a better sense of community transmission, how Cayman is faring and whether there is capacity at our hospitals. Some have already been quarantined in their cabin for 2 weeks.
I’m not proposing to do it, just to think about it. I don’t see it as impossible. If some place doesn’t let them in, most people in the cruise industry here are facing permanent unemployment. Stuck in one of those cabins for weeks on end, with no way of getting off, would put you off cruises forever.
Surely you are joking? Have you even thought through the ramifications of your suggestion? And I laughed…
Hell no!!! These cruise ships need to go back to the Ports where they are registered..why should we as such a small island take on their costs and medical cases??
You been smoking again.
Idiot
a true test of cayman christianity…
I generally encourage people to think before writing. There are good reasons for that.
9.16am you are certainly an ignorant hombre, but more likely a troll.
11.21am You are aware of course most of those returning are Caymanians and the rest permanent residents so you all seem to have a very low opinion of your own kind and don’t mind insulting them.
Personal insults are the standard approach from local contributors on CNS to anything they disagree with.Sad.
Why does the Police Commissioner constantly say in his briefing that people that were caught breaking curfew were “warned for prosecution?”
I’m sorry there is no way someone can say they don’t understand the law. We have been doing this for some time now and everyone knows the law, it should be a zero tolerance behavior from the Police..
Good question.
It all to do with interpretation of “for”
It should means they will be prosecuted at a later date and summonsed to appear in court.
There’s also warned for intended prosecution You will be prosecuted
warned in lieu of prosecution, a warning to behave
warned of prosecution, do as I say or be prosecuted
Maybe a legal eagle could give the correct=t interpretation for Cayman
“Warned for prosecution” means that they are going to be prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It means that they are going to court. It doesn’t mean that they were warned and let off. – Hope that helps 🙂
It does. Now let’s hope they follow through. Too many idiots out
I am not surprised, watching briefings, nothing happened in Little Cayman. How can anything be reported if everything is swept under the rug? Including a dive accident a couple of weeks ago, resulting in death?
How about domestic violence?
Happening but never reported!!
Seriously? It means they are going to court at a later date! Good grief. At a later date!!!
My biggest concern is that we are importing some bad actors that ran from here are coming back and freeloading off of us and even if we manage to keep them in quarantine, they will be the first to start the crime…Caymanian or not some type of screening must be done..
I resemble that remark
I concur, but we all know who out him there. I see him looking at him with a horrified look on his face. What does he expect?
I’ll take “Stirring the Pot” for $500, Alex.
How many leaving, how many expected to come in??
At the presser yesterday he said 121 in UK had applied so far and there would be a screening exercise. So number could go up, or be less than that. But it doesn’t look like just a handful of people. Not sure how many rooms we have left in the quarantine hotel – think there were 170 returnees that took up that offer. There has been no information on how many rooms are being used by civil servants or medical workers who want to isolate themselves from their families which was meant to the the other use.
109 applied.
The ones in quarantine hotel will be out mostly by Saturday if they are healthy.
Who paying and who is not.
It’s great to know that everyone involved in getting these people home are willing to sacrifice and go under a 2 week mandatory quarantine. The pilot and crew of the plane, the grounds/cleaning crew, baggage handlers, immigration officers checking them through, and ground transport delivering them from the airport to the quarantine facility. Thank you all for your sacrifice.
from cig… the folks who brought corona virus into cayman originally…zzzz
yo alden..how you going to blame private sector this time?
Can’t fix stupid…this thing is global. I suspect it was here long before our first official case, just that people had mild symptoms. How did you think it was not going to get here?
These flight will need two flight crews..Where is the crew overnighting? Will tehy be quarantined?
The crew should be able to remain on board and fly back to London with a replacement crew. The aircraft has crew cabins and crew lounges that is above the passenger cabin.
Ah the famous crew cabins and lounges of the invisible second story of the single level 777. Where do you get this stuff?
On a 747, yes
Ahh I see. Well that solves the fact that a 777 doesn’t have 2 floors. Unfortunately it throws up a couple of other problems. Item 1. BA doesn’t have any 747’s where the upper deck is configured for crew accommodation and lounges. Item 2. A 747 couldn/t take off from Owen Roberts. So it cant be a 747, or before you go there, the only other 2 decker, a 380, even if BA did have “crew lounges and cabins” – which they don’t.
I have been on a 777 that had crew quarters. Not a BA flight, but on that flight they were. It was downstairs nearer the cargo hold.
Sure, did you go down and party with the staff in the cargo hold?
That was explained at the briefing yesterday. The crew will not deboard the aircraft!
deboard!!!!! you mean disembark, oh sorry you may be American.
Don’t you mean debarcation .. you must be an Idiot.
There will be no “ debarcation” for the crew.
Unfortunately, under UKCAA those pilots will be out of time so they will have to be relieved by another crew.. They cannot fly to Bermuda then to Cayman then back to Bermuda and eventually London..We are talking about nearly 24 hours working..It doesn’t happen in the airline business..
Well let’s put it another way, I would fly the 10-12 hours with them on the way from London to Cayman but I sure as hell wouldn’t get on that plane after they have been working for 12 hours to fly back with them..
According to the governor yesterday they are not leaving the airport. Guess they are either flying with a spare crew on board or picking up a crew in the Bahamas in the way back.
Wouldn’t it be better and safer if BA just flew one of their cargo planes here? Less crew, no passengers and less opportunities to spread the disease?
But then a) there would be no passenger paying for seats to offset the price b) you wouldn’t be able to fly people out.
On the first point tho, if this really was just about the medical supplies they could be sent air cargo – isn’t Cayman Airways continuing to operate that flight from Miami?
The Governor said yesterday that the UK was paying for part of the costs to fly this plane here.Trust me Cayman will pay the lions share..UK does very little for us than to treat us as a step child..Whatever goods they send we will have to share with our sister countries in the Caribbean and they will expect us at our cost to fly them there on Cayman Airways..
By the way I was not talking about flying a commercial aircraft from the UK but instead a cargo plane…Less crew and less chances for us to be contaminated here..
Exactly my point. By flying fare paying passengers they reduce the costs of the flight. And whilst a cargo flight would reduce the contamination risk, so would paying t=fir the stuff to be air freighted on commercial cargo carriers if they are still operating. Why would you charter a whole aircraft just to fly some medical supplies and PPE? How many tons do you think they are sending? But its not really about the most cost effective way of getting the supplies here – its about Mother making a gesture that its supporting the BOTs and evacuating British nationals, but without spending too much money actually doing it.
Ban take away and delivery food. It is an excuse to go out
But what would half the people on this island do without their fast food fix?
Can whoever gets these comments please ask the Government when Ecaytrade will be closed down. It’s encouraging non essential travel and strangers interacting and rife for community spread – shut it down now.
It should only be operating for delivery services which there should be no interaction between persons whatsoever.
March 30 “ Premier Alden McLaughlin said police now had the resources to ensure that people were isolating and warned it would be a ‘tragedy’ if anyone who returned from the UK failed to follow the mandate to stay away from others for 14 days.
This was echoed by Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee, who said people with coronavirus symptoms, or who were living with people with those symptoms, would be dealt with by police if they did not abide by self-isolation regulations.”
March 31. “Any residents returning to Cayman on the special British Airways flight expected from London next week will not be allowed to self-isolate but will be placed in mandatory government quarantine. Following some panic in the community after the announcement about the flight yesterday, government has confirmed that quarantine is a condition of return. “
No change there then. Thank god he has listened to reason, though accusing people of panicking as if self isolation wasn’t the original plan is a bit insulting to our intelligence- does he honestly think we don’t remember what was said 24 hrs ago?
No mention of mandatory quarantine in givers dictated facilities yesterday. In fact comments to the effect that the quarantine hotel would be available for those who wanted it. Today we were all panicking unnecessarily and they are going into government quarantine. So which is it? You misspoke yesterday, or there was a change of heart when you saw the backlash, but rather than admit that the public are just “ panicking” ?
Incorrect. He said it was mandatory, Comfort Suites.
Nope in his first statement he said that they would be required to isolate and the hotel option would remain open to them ..HE DID NOT SAY THEY WOULD BE “QUARANTINEED” NOT ISOLATED AT THE COMFORT SUITES UNTIL YESTERDAY!!
As it may sound mean, it would be best to send almost all people who are not going to be essential workers back to their homelands and once things are cleared up then let them come back. Work permit time limits should be put on hold so that both the employee and the employer are not disadvantaged; when the employee comes back then their time would start again. The longer that all these out of work people are here it will be causing a major issue because who will take care of them?
Just how do you suggest we do it…Most countries have closed their borders and the few that haven’t like the UK are idiots…
We have lots of private boats capable of reaching our neighbours and 3 gun boats and a helicopter to assist. Doubtful if they will dare stand up to an armada with loads of own citizens being escorted. There is a way..
Honduras is closed, but Jamaica is not closed to its own nationals. Less than an hour away by Cayman Airways. A shuttle flight could get a ton of people home in short order.
I’m waiting to read the comments from all these “obsessors” the Premier referred to who are so upset about Caymanians returning to Cayman on the BA flight.
Stopped being obsessed once he decided to quarantine them.