Suspect COVID passenger on CAL flight
(CNS) UPDATED: A business class traveler on Cayman Airways KX103 from Miami that landed in Cayman Friday, who was said to have symptoms associated with COVID-19 is no longer thought to have the virus, but health officials have said the person has been isolated. Passengers who didn’t have contact with the patient have been released and those who shared the business class Cabin have been advised to contact the hospital if they develop any symptoms associated with COVId-19
When the passenger arrived, Cayman Airways said local health authorities were dispatched to the airport and protocols were implemented to protect passengers and residents.
Meanwhile, Cayman Airways issued a press release Thursday promising passengers that its planes are clean, safe and sanitized, as the COVID-19 pandemic is putting all air travellers at risk. It has also announced it will waive fees for some flight changes.
But the beleaguered airline is facing a very uncertain future in the face of COVID-19 and its impact on tourism at a time when it is already suffering financially as a result of the grounding of the 737 Max 8 aircraft.
The Cayman Islands Government has not yet placed any restrictions on Cayman Airways’ various flights to the United States. But with the increasing evidence that huge numbers of people in America may be infected but untested and moving freely about, as a result of the poor response to the outbreak there, the CIG may decide it needs to restrict travel in order to try and limit Cayman’s exposure to additional cases.
In the meantime, CAL said it was focusing on keeping its fleet sanitized to protect passengers, while urging people who are sick not to travel.
“Our regular cleaning practices for aircraft have always met or exceeded all regulatory guidelines, both locally and in the markets we serve, and now we’ve introduced enhanced and specialized cleaning measures between flights daily,” said Cayman Airways President and CEO Fabian Whorms. “For every flight you take with Cayman Airways, you can rest assured that your safety and well-being, as well as that of our employees, are our top priority at every step of your journey with us.”
Whorms said that, in accordance with required procedures, all catering equipment on board CAL’s aircraft already undergo a thorough sanitization regimen. However, the company’s catering providers locally and overseas have also now introduced their own enhanced sanitization measures and procedures at their facilities, as well as for the transportation of scheduled catering to and from CAL’s aircraft.
CAL VP Airport Operations Ivan Forbes said Cal was working with the airport authorities at the various gateways to ensure a clean and safe environment for CAL workers and customers.
“Our airport partners are ensuring that check-in areas and departure gates are maintained in a suitable sanitary condition, while all Cayman Airways employees, especially those on the front-line, are being briefed on the best practices and health advisories issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and local health officials with regards to how to stay germ free and healthy in the fight against COVID-19,” Forbes added.
The airline has also extended its change-fee waiver deadlines for people who need to change travel plans. Passengers wishing to make changes to an existing ticket for travel to or from international destinations may do so without being subject to the change fee, providing that the travel is on Cayman Airways and the ticket was purchased before 3 March for travel before 30 April.
Travel can be re-booked within the validity of the original ticket, but changes must be made on or before 30 April. Any fare difference will apply at the time of re-booking. Any new tickets bought on or before 31 March will not be subject to change fees, but the ticket will be non-refundable, and this applies for travel up to 31 October.
Customers wishing to change their bookings should contact their travel professional or call Cayman Airways Reservations on: 345-949-2311; 1-800-422-9626 (toll free in the USA); 866-759-1372 (toll free in Jamaica); or 800-2791-9422 (toll free in Honduras).
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Every single person on that flight should have been quarantined until they were tested and found negative otherwise they are infecting people right now and not even aware. This kind of stupidity will kill us all. First they let the cruise passenger on island to infect health city staff and now the plane passengers are in public and could all be infected or at least some. Is any one awake in Government? Dwayne “the brain” are you there?
We all should take all measures to protect everyone. I heard that even beards are a source of possible harbouring the virus. Hygiene is of course a high priority hygiene point. This is a world wide issue now, lets all take any necessary precaution to prevent the Corvid-19.
Perfectly said. :up: Regardless of our age, we should take EVERY step necessary to protect everyone. Even if our friends laugh at our obsessive use of hand sanitizer. Even (or especially) if our friends call us paranoid. Get this done. BE SAFE and SAFE toward others. Stay at home.
People may think there is no loss to losing 4% of our elders. Just imagine how our world might be changed without the wisdom and influence of our elders. Our culture would be adversely affected.
oh yes PLEASE can that trend be done with now already
2 hospitals available here.
Only one right now, and neither equipped to handle this situation. Good luck everyone. #stayhome
If you include Faith Hospital on the Brac we have 3 hospitals available in the Cayman Islands. Too bad the 4th one Health City didn’t take precautions with the cruise ship passenger.
Maybe 30 rooms. Two weeks from now, fully occupied with the relatives of our corrupt MLAs, as people die in the hallways.
I am actually very impressed with how Cayman is handling this. They seem to be following the UK strategy of accepting the inevitable spread of the virus and therefore concentrating on reducing the health services burden by aiming to slow the rate of transmission so that it is extended over a greater time period. This is the only viable response to dealing with this. Good luck.
This is the failing Italy playbook. Look at them now. They warned us. UK to announce a whole new raft of measures on Monday, including retooling Rolls Royce factory lines to make ventilators.
Why aren’t we putting a quarantine requirement on all persons arriving to Cayman? If persons cannot self-quarantine for 14 days, they should not be admitted into the country. Also, do we have thermometer guns? Officials should be doing temperature checks on all passengers arriving to the Island. That’s how persons infected with COVID-19 were intercepted at the borders of other countries, and then subsequently treated.
The thermometer guns don’t work very well, even if the unusual two week symptom-free period had ended. Airline staff are not frontline health workers or geography majors to evaluate any of this. We all need to self-isolate which means stay home, do not pass go. Assume it’s already here and spreading and people that dismiss the reality overseas and existent threat are lining up for a lifetime of breathing problems and lung scar damage, or worse. No thanks. People are wandering around like this everything is fine, infecting others. Stay home unless you absolutely need to go out.
If you are at home, how you know everyone else is wandering around?
Everyone on that plane should have been put under quarantine, as we cant see / know who might have received and is now carrying that virus. Just imagine you were a passenger on that plane and you were feeling good when got out of the plane. Yet you have virus and you will not find it until it shows. By that time, you would have infected a lot of people starting with those inside you house. This is the reason why quarantine and lockdowns are put into effect.
Only thise in the immediate area would be at risk. Economy passengers should be OK, it is not airborne other than immediate surrounding a sneeze.
So you’re complaining that US citizens aren’t being tested and are roaming freely. Have all of your pilots, flight attendants and airport personnel been tested? They too could be infected and showing no evident signs. Lets try to speak intelligently about this virus.
What happens to the passengers now? Will they be quarantined. Surely they are not allowed in public before test results come back.
Apart from the fact that they the passenger is not after all suspected to have the virus. Just coughed and instant panic.
Because it’s a valid concern.
They couldn’t all be quarantined because a certain Minister’s wife was on the flight.
Say it ain’t so!
Do you think better process might catch them on the other side?
Trumpet missed the boat with his initial response to the outbreak. He’s going to reap what he sowed by being dismissive and his usual ‘everything is great’ mantra. Now he’ll employ distraction techniques, declare a National emergency and print more $ so the US can play catch-up. Unfortunately, his actions will have far reaching effects beyond the USA.
Snore
At least he’s done a lot better than our leaders. Our leaders created this COVID – 19 mess and all our lives are now in danger! They state we should remain calm but how can we? Look at their track record, the fire at the dump, the traffic problem, we are now blacklisted, we are $9M in the hole for the port consultations, the redevelopment of Smith Cove, a battered woman from the hands of a government official and the list goes on
@7.39- It makes sense that when things are out of your control you are experiencing a heightened level of anxiety.
Tell me what assumptions you are making when you say your life is in danger. What is your definition of ‘in danger’.
If this was your son or daughter who were feeling highly anxious about the Covid 19 situation, what would you tell them? How would you console them?
How has casting blame helped you in the past?
What could be a more productive way to use your time and energy?
History and basic economics dictate that printing more $ will not help him catch up, only make things worse.
Agreed. And right on cue the US has fired up the printing press for more quantitative easing to the tune of $700 billion.
What does self quarantine actually mean? Do you have to find somewhere to stay totally by yourself. If a relative was on the flight and they come back to your house is the whole family now under quarantine? How long after someone is potentially exposed are they able to transmit the virus to someone else? Are any facilities available for people to go to quarantine themselves? If a household is under quarantine how can they get essential supplies like food? Guidelines for self quarantine are urgently needed.
I received Min of Health’s “Advice sheet for home isolation” guidance for covid-19 from friends, on whatsapp – could HSA please make it available on the website for the general public please!!
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I received Ministry of Health’s “Advice sheet for home isolation” guidance for covid-19 from friends, on whatsapp.
Can’t find it on the MoH nor HSA website.
Could HSA please make it available to the general public please!!
Self quarantine: to isolate one’s self from the general population, which for this purpose is going to be the members of the community who have not tested positive for COVID-19.
You should remain in your residence, isolating yourself from the members of your household who are negative for COVID-19. If your house is able to allow you to isolate yourself in a room away from others, do so until you have recovered and for as long as possible thereafter (sources differ between 6-14 days). If you have other persons living in your residence, you can prevent the spread of the virus by wearing a mask, discarding tissues in the bin immediately and washing your hands regularly, encourage your household to be vigilant with their own hand washing and maintaining a healthy environment, using disinfectants on high-traffic areas such as door knobs, fridge/sink/toilet handles, etc. Your healthy family members should do their best to remain healthy: eat well, get adequate rest, remain calm, stay active as possible, find alternatives to smoking if they are a smoker (chewing sunflower seeds, peanuts, gum etc.), and avoid physical contact with you or areas where you have been. Change your sheets daily, wash them (and your clothes) with hot water and bleach (put them in a garbage bag for transport to the machine and place them into the machine using a mask and gloves if you are healthy, wash your hands after handling anything a COVID-19 positive patient has come into contact with, use disinfectant wipes or Lysol on the outside of the washing and drying machines). Isolated persons who do not live with anyone can do all of the above, in theory, without a mask but I would encourage you to still use one to keep your environment clean. Disinfect what you touch, wash your hands frequently, and have a contingency plan in place ie. a few friends who may be able to deliver supplies or food to leave at your door if necessary. If you are unable to care for yourself while ill, you should be transported to the hospital either by ambulance or by an aquaintance (wear masks, avoid physical contact, disinfect the car seat, steering wheel, and handles, wash your hands after, your transporter should isolate themself as well thereafter for at least 6-14 days).
If a family member travels, the household should place themselves under a 14-day quarantine. In that time frame, symptoms will become evident if spread within the house. Maintain a healthy environment and keep healthy. A person of this household (who is not presenting with symptoms) who absolutely needs to leave the house (eg. to buy supplies) should wear a mask regardless of if they are presenting with symptoms – the virus has a short latency period where symptoms may not show for several days though you may still be contagious.
Currently in Cayman there are no such quarantine facilities, it’s best to isolate yourself from home unless you are experiencing severe symptoms (shortness of breath, bluish lips, etc. – please consult the CDC’s website for the full list) and require medical help.
Remain calm, be prepared, and have a plan in place for your household.
Where do we gat the masks from?
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
Bringing in more infected I see?
…and Health City closed themselves in this potential crisis. Cease Tourists from arriving then. With 1 Hospital left, it needs to serve the Cayman people first.
Happy we quarantined all persons on this flight? Until futher testing is done…or are they wslking freely about?
What about the health officials who boarded the plane; are they now under self quarantine? If they are we are going to run out of responders very quickly.
Not quarantined. Go figure! So basically these passengers can infect many others because they have not been tested and no one knows their identities.
Close the airport to residents only
What a stupid thing to say. So the super human Caymanians and foreign workers can’t catch corona virus then?
My god there are some stupid people out there, it’s not only foreigners that use CAL you moron.
Why bring Tourists in, with ONLY 1 Hospital available because Health City closed themselves down.
3 – 1 = 2
Health City has/had 17 ICU beds. GT Hospital has 20. CTMH has 18. If ICU beds correlates to medical ventilator availability, we have f**k all capacity and training for this contagion. God help us all in two weeks when we our loved ones are in the conflict triage because Dwayne Seymour “forgot” to order ventilators with the $1million.
Too late. I did warn we should close the gates a couple of weeks ago. Everyone seemed to think I was mad, moaning about the adverse effects on business yada, yada. So this is exactly what I warned of. Now the whole island is exposed and affected financially.
As of March 13, the CDC reports 1,629 people with corona in the U.S. and 41 deaths ( people who were older with underlying medical conditions).
There are more people dealing w/ influenza each year.
CNS: Because the Trump administration totally failed getting the testing going (as stated by Anthony S. Fauci, the top medical official in the matter) they are way way behind other countries in testing. So the number testing positive does not in any way reflect the number who have it. See here, and yes I realise it’s a few days behind.The COVID-19 appears to spread much more quickly than the flu and the current efforts to contain it are to try to prevent an explosion of seriously ill people that the hospitals cannot cope with. Don’t panic but don’t be complacent.
1,268/329,000,000 = 0.00039% of the US population are positive and only 33 have died — this does not seem to warrant “huge numbers of people in America may be infected” …. come on now.
CNS: What you are missing if you only watch Fox News is how few people in the US have been tested as a result of a totally inept response by the Trump administration. The authorities have no idea how many people are infected. Read this and weep. Many experts are worried that the pattern in Italy – see here – may be about to repeat itself in other countries, including the US and the UK. But in the US especially, they are working blind because they have no idea where the pockets of infection really are. Your arithmetic is fantasy fiction.
The stats you have given are nonsense. We do not know how how many asymptomatic people there are or people with mild symptoms who are walking around thinking they have a cold. It is almost certain that there are many more people infected than has been reported. On the bright side this would also mean that the mortality rate is far lower than currently being reported. Take precautions but this is not the end of the world.
Lol this why I love CNS. Always clapping back with facts
Thumbs up for cns
“But in the US especially, they are working blind because they have no idea where the pockets of infection really are. Your arithmetic is fantasy fiction”
In Cayman is a blind fiction or cover up too.
The SARS CoVID 2 is proven -clinical data from Wuhan and other highly infected places- cause in the vast majority of cases a mild to moderate flu (symptons) specially stuffy, runny nose, sore throat, and dry cough, NO FEVER, a common flu like clinical presentation. In the last 2 weeks we have had an epidemic proportion of cases seeking medical asdistance in these Islands, and the local HSA doctors -on Instruction from Public Health Officials- has labelled all these patients as “Common Flu cases” on a one by one case, prescribed Tamiflu and descongestants plus cough syrup, coincidentaly the same protocol applied all over for the CoVID cases, with the difference that out there they are actively testing to know what is what, to have solid and credible statistic data that could be trusted for epidemiological purpose and to decide further -scientific and not empiric based Public Health Actions- here the Public Health Officials have erred on this, a terrible “mistake” or on purpose to be misdiagnosing all Flu patients without any test or scientific facts.
To add insult to the injury, and let me quote, the Chief Medical Officers has stated: ..Monday or Tuesday we will start testing locally, but if the virus spread locally we will stop testing as it is not relevant them’.
A gross medical and epidemiogical medical mistake, politically induced? Who knows.
We need to Test, specially in small closed population as our, we need to graphic the pick of the epidemic, the pockets of infection and contagion, we need to have data documented in order to rightfully allocated our limited resources and take scientifically based decisions. This virus will not go away and disapear, it is a Coronavirus as all the common Flu virus are, it will mutate from time to time, we must have epidemiological graphics based on reality and not in wish or speculations, science does not work like that, with all the due rsspect, the Public Health Officials are ill advising the CIG which does not have knowlege or clue about medicine as a science, epidemiology and much less about how to management and control of a Pandemic of this proportion and how to break the chain of transmission. In addition to add more to the mishandling, we do not have established a mandatory quarantine facility(es), we do not have thr required ICU like facility and life support ventilators and ICU qualified personel to cope with a health crisis of this nature, regular doctors, nurses and specialist have not the knowledge, the training and skills to do ICU treatment and assisted or controlled ventilation, few anesthesiologist have this knowledge ans of course ICU specialists. How many do we have here? Just a few.
Public Health Official, pls stop misrepresenting to the population and to the CIG or stop the cover up. The CoVID here is spreading in exponential proportions and u have labelled it as Common Flu. Still u are -lack of knowledge training and experience, let alone epidemiological training and skills- letting more infected and contact people to walk free into a non medically knowledgeable community, exposing us all to be infected, Propagation of Epidemic, a crime. The Public Healt Officer (a mere GP without any specialisation, epidemiology or Management and Control of Epidemic training and skills) knows that in the country where he graduated, but NEVER PRACTICE, Cuba, to do this what he is doing here, will landed any doctor for several years in jail inmediately.
We are heading to a serious devastating human and health catastrophe just becuase incompetence ineptitude and mismanagement.
Wake up Cayman, our people will die massively, without necessity, because we have the $ resource to do much much better, and have an Epidemiolpgy expertise with the appropriate traiming, skills and experience leading the Public Health Department and not a GP registered in Jamaica and always doing GP clinics here.
We have missed important milestones in the prevention, and now in the Management and Control of this serious epidemic.
I have said,
Brown Freeman (MD)
Not sure I’ll panic having read your comment, but I will take two aspirins to calm my headache and take a nap to recover from being exhausted.
Good Lord, I hope that I don’t ever get that sick that I have to go to you for care..Paranoia much??
Thank you for your responsible reporting CNS. Please continue to shut down these clowns who are hell bent on spewing misinformation.
How many people have coughed or sneezed on Jet Blue United, AA, Southwest or Cayman Airways flights to GCM in the past 2.5 months?
Covid19 is here, its’ been here for a while. We’ve only tested very ill symptomatic people.
We’ve lost our minds…..
Cayman Airways needs to institute a cough count on flights from Miami : 2, permitted, 4 no free rum punch, 6,you have to sit in the toilet, 8 and above, arrest for quarantine on arrival.
More importantly will the pretentious snob in business class who has infected everyone by selfishly continuing to travel be prosecuted? If others are infected and it tragically results in loss of life – manslaughter charges should be brought.
Pretentious snob? Really? What a stupid thing to say!
I have to agree with you, it has been here for a while and not detected because it has been diagnosed as a “Bad Flu”. This erupting during Flu season has not helped either. Some people have mild symptoms associated with a common cold, as I read all the signs I can say that looking back 3 weeks ago, I had at least 7 of the symptoms ( I have not travelled since December 2019). Only symptom I did not have was fever and I had mild chills. I self diagnosed and self treated myself. I had this “Flu” for 2 1/2 weeks and then it came back again. I didn’t think it could have been the virus as I had not travel anywhere recently and no cases were reported here as yet I did stay home as much as I could and stay away from public places as much as I could.
Fever is a fairly key symptom
Exactly!
“But with the increasing evidence that huge numbers of people in America may be infected but untested and moving freely about, as a result of the poor response to the outbreak there…”
I don’t know where you get your news, but the response in the US has been perfect. Even Fox News says so.
Faux News
Hahahaha
Obviously a left leaning post. If Trump had not suspended flights from China when he, did the outbreak would have been huge by now. Compare that with the Swine Flu response by the last administration. No matter how much Snopes and Google try to cover it up, it was lousy and over 1,000 people died before a major response was ordered.
Reality has a liberal bias
You can be tested and receive a Negative result then become infected even hours later.
So now what, test for 90 days? Folks are not being hospitalized nor dying in droves.