Cayman could get COVID vaccine for Christmas
(CNS): Deputy Premier Moses Kirkconnell has said the Cayman Islands can expect to get doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from the UK in December, and that while everyone here will be encouraged to get the shot, it will not be mandated. The success so far of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine trials have raised hopes that, once approved, this vaccine will help Cayman reopen its tourism sector.
Speaking at a Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA) forum at the Ritz-Carlton on Wednesday, Kirkconnell said that government met this week with Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee, who told them that the UK will be sending vaccines here next month. The CMO is preparing a report on the issue along with the acquisition of antigen tests.
The vaccine trials are not over as the researchers have not yet observed people taking part in the trials for long enough to ensure that there are no ill effects. It has already been reported that there are side effects like a sore arm or fever from this vaccine, the first of a number that are expected to get emergency clearance soon for distribution.
There is still a paucity of key information about the vaccine itself and whether or not it prevents severe cases or even if it prevents people from carrying the virus without symptoms. However, the EU has agreed to buy 300 million doses and the US is buying 100 million, while UK expects to receive 10 million doses this year. The Guardian reported that Pfizer and BioNTech could make $13bn from coronavirus vaccine.
Kirkconnell did not say how many doses would be sent to Cayman if and when the vaccine is cleared for public use, but it is likely to be reserved for healthcare workers in the first instance.
Tourism Minister Kirkconnell revealed that while Cayman will not mandate that people here take the shot once it is available, government will be promoting the vaccine heavily when it has enough doses. He said that the aim would then be to require all visitors to get vaccinated before they come to Cayman, which, with the help of antigen testing, will enable the country to begin reopening the tourism sector.
It is not yet clear when the vaccine will be approved or how many people need to be vaccinated in order for it to be effective. And how people will agree to take this new vaccine before it has been widely used also remains to be seen.
So, while the minister here appeared very enthusiastic about its arrival, independent medical experts across the world continue to urge caution about this vaccine. Despite preliminary results attesting to its efficacy, there are still many variables and unknowns about this and other vaccines in trial that the world is waiting on.
Category: Business, Health, Medical Health, Tourism
People in the comment section are suddenly armchair experts on vaccines.
People in this comment section actually trying demonize the Gates foundation despite the literal millions of people that said foundation has helped.
People in this comment section forgetting the hundreds of millions saved from the introduction of insulin and how it spiraled to the creation of vaccines for other sicknessess that were once a death sentence
People in this comment section thinking that 90% is not assurance enough while they continue to vehicles, literally the most dangerous form of transportation. There is a risk to everything you do in life.
People in this comment section forgetting the COVID-19 is not a new virus and it’s vaccine work has been in the making for about 7 years now, only expedited because of funding from the Gates foundation and the pandemic.
People in this comment section preferring to endure the virus forgetting the permenant damage it has to an individual’s lung as-well as inflammation to the heart leading to constant exhaustion, fatigue, headache and neurological changes.
Most importantly people in this comment section who lack the ability of critical thinking and take whatever they see on facebook/instagram/reddit etc at face value rather than reading and building a more varied response to develop you’re own goddamn opinion rather than copying others. Where if the facts hurt their feelings or don’t confirm their bias then it must be a lie.
I’m honestly tired, when did opinions become more factual than facts itself?
Don’t disagree with some of what you say but if COVID-19 wasn’t a “new virus” I don’t think it would be referred to as “the novel coronavirus”. Also the 19 in COVID-19 stands for 2019.
If you are going to rail against alternative facts, then use one of your own it sort of diminishes your argument.
unna better mind…
Injecting heroin from boiling off a rusty spoon probably more safe. At least that’s tried and tested and everyone knows the side effects.
What temperature is the morgue set at?
No way am i taking that shot . Just to many unknowns about long term . No Sir , Prob gonna be another virus coming next year also . I am well over 60 now and willing to catch it and hope i get natural body immunity . Zero trust for Big pharma .
Jab it up and down both my arms and get me on the plane!
Foolish person.
If Doktor Moses say erryting Kriss why he don’t test run his constituents in the Brac first eh??? You first Herr Kirkonnel!
1:42 you can get on a plane now..get going 😉
That should give them just enough time to figure out how they are going to personally profit from it.
The virus has a 99.98% survival rate and the vaccine has a 90 % rate.???
Not the virus has 99.98% survival rate, but among those who got infected with COVID-19(52.9mil.) mortality rate is 2.46%.
If measure to the worldwide population of 7bil. mortality rate is 0.02%
And what is mortality rate pre Covid?
100%. If you were born, 100% you will die.
Nearly 150,000 people die each day around the world (pre-covid)
COVID is killed by soap and water, a 0% survival rate.
Well, if you can hold the soap and water in your nose and mouth 100% of the time, that would be true, but you would die from drowning if you tried to breathe, so the outcome from that cure is 100% fatal.
After seeing this week’s dire exam report it comes as no surprise to find this place full of anti-vax idiots. The US and UK vaccines aren’t rushed; the trials are progressing very quickly because they’ve had a tidal wave of money spent on them! You think healthcare professionals are going to take it if the trials aren’t done right?
Do you know there are studies called pharmacogenetics and vaccinogenetics? They study how people respond differently to drug therapy and vaccinations based upon their genetic makeup or genes.
The mere existence of these studies acknowledges that there is not “one size fit all” when it comes to pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
As many as 40,000 people a year die from drug side effects in the US.
In 2019, a total of $225,457,657.94 was paid to both petitioners and their attorneys from National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (the USA) and $226,457,657.94 in 2018.
So before calling people idiots, educate yourself. Most people are not against vaccines, but for the safer vaccines, elimination of unnecessary vaccines and spreading vaccination over longer periods instead of lumping several vaccines in one.
Did you know there are safer vaccines that insurances do not cover? Many parents pay extra to obtain such vaccines.
The more important issue is why is the UK supplying a place with vaccine doses when it only has 40m, enough for 20m people when the UK has 30m classed as vulnerable. Why supply here when it’s clear the uslands do not appreciate the UK. Let’s use it as a test case for independence when we may see just how far down the global pecking order this place is. Why should UK tax payer pay to subsidise this place, especially when the conspiratorists are either not going to take it or, completely selfishly, let others while they await the outcome. The UK shouldn’t waste the vaccine but ensure it is used by those that pay for it.
even if they are, it’s a nope from this nurse
Bit disrespectful to all the parents who saw their kids develop Guillane Barr syndrome after the Gardasil debacle, not to mention the poor folk in India on the receiving end of Bill Gates’ polio concoction.
Whoever you are, stop bullying. If you want the vaccine, take it and leave the rest of us alone..
CNS: Fact Check: Were 496,000 Children In India Paralyzed Between 2000 & 2017 From “Bill Gates Polio Vaccine”?
Short answer: No. It’s an anti-vaxer conspiracy theory started by anti-vax lunatic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On the other claim, here’s what seems to be a balanced view on WebMD, but anyone interested should research it more.
Thanks CNS.
you always going to be confronted with other people opinions which may or may not be misleading
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not an anti-vaxx lunatic.
Your choice of words “anti-vax lunatic” says more about you, CNS than the target of your ire.
You are obviously fixed in your belief and like every good left wing “news” outlet you wish to make your position manifest.
We hear you and many of us choose to disagree with you. Do not use your platform to bully people.
It does not become you.
CNS: I will continue to call out lunatic conspiracy theories. They are doing great harm in the world.
100 likes for CNS
COVID 19 vaccination will be the biggest fiasco ever!!! . Just wait an see.
Just wait AND see
6.35am Are you referring to our “local” vaccine approved for trial here by the Health Practitioners Commission the majority of which are not even doctors?.
No. Covid19 vaccine in general. By all manufacturers. It would accomplish nothing.
13 bn in revenues ?
Enough reason not to take it.
Thats just for the first shot!
Pretty sure that 90% effectiveness on the first time out is pretty much impossible.
Let the crazy Yanks try it out first before they come here and maybe I’ll get version 3.0 or 4.0 injected in my arm.
When there’s $13B on the line you know they don’t want to be the first ones out of the gate just because they care about people.
what exactly 90% effectiveness means?
90% of the people vaccinated developed anti bodies to the virus.
I assume the that the 90% was achieved because there has to be a placebo thus leaving a certain number of people in trials throwing in their 99.98% survival rate using their own human immunity…I think that helps to push the % up no?
No. Natural immunity has nothing to do with it – they are measuring whether spur body develops antibodies to the virus, not whether you would survive the virus irrespective of the vaccine. The only way to do that would be to deliberately expose the test subject to live Covid 19 virus, including the placebo takers. Slight ethical problem with that!
They not injecting that muck in me.
Hardly solid proof yet, the touted 90% success figure was based on 94 results out of 43,500 tested. It’s about as accurate as those stupid anti-aging cream adverts.
Has Dr Marzouca taken his trial shot yet, how is he feeling, or was it a placebo?.
Please, somebody help me here.
Does Cayman have a medical facility able to store the vaccine at the required minus 70 degrees C?
Can we ensure the cold chain is maintained during transportation any deviation from those temperatures will render the vaccine ineffective as we are talking about genetic ‘material’.
Once the vaccine is defrosted and stored in the usual cold chain temperatures +2 to + 8 C it must be used within 5 days or can not be used. That will require careful planning and organisation from those administering it, especially as a second vaccination is required for it to be effective.
I am interested in how that will all work for Cayman.
You know the answers. Those who intended to vaccinate have ordered deep freezers months ago. But the most important steps are vaccine handling before and after it reaches the freezers.
This kind of vaccine is not going to work simply because of Cayman tropical climate, inherent inability to comply with super stringent handling requirements and general attitude toward it. I doubt that even 2nd vile out 5 will be used, so 4 will be thrown away.
Don’t waste money on trying to accomplish something that was meant to fail from the start. WHO already admitted that hot climate countries won’t be able to comply with all requirements. Billions are wasted and continue being wasted.
Gargle iodine in 1/19 dilution and check your D3 levels.
There’s this incredible new invention, so revolutionary that you might not even be acquainted with it as yet. It’s called a Frigidaire freezer.
Fridgidaire don’t make ultra low temperature freezers.
Minus 70 degrees though – don’t you can just rack up to Al T’s and grab one.
Yet
You think the vaccine will come to us first? HA! After the doses given to frontline workers, high up in office, and the billionaires in the US…. we will see something by next fall. I’m good on waiting too see how it works.
Billionaires are not going to vaccinate. Neither those who are “ high up in the office”..
They will test it on poor and gullible..
No need to get snarky. The first sentence says Cayman will get “a Covid 19 vaccine” – not the Pfizer vaccine. The second sentence then talks about the success of the Pfizer vaccine but without being specific as to whether the Minister had said it was the Pfizer vaccine, or you had simply assumed it. Especially since the UK governments focus has been on the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which they are buying 10 times as much of as the Pfizer one. But hey ho, if he specifically said Pfizer, then thanks for clarifying.
First cruise back in action and already a positive test:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-12/passenger-gets-covid-on-first-caribbean-cruise-report-says?utm_medium=social&utm_content=business&utm_source=twitter&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic
Ban them!! Time to move on.
28.5 million people who took cruises in 2018 might disagree with you. Before the pandemic it was estimated that 32 million would cruise. https://www.statista.com/statistics/385445/number-of-passengers-of-the-cruise-industry-worldwide/
“Demand for cruising increased 20.5% in the last five years” (as of 2018).
Despite pretesting and arrival testing the 1 positive increased to 5 cases according to CNN in a day. Will probably be more once the 14 days is up.
Same thing will happen here is we allow these fool resort bubbles.
More likely we get Covid for Christmas
WHO and the Gates Foundation struggle to raise some $18 billion for their ‘Covax’ program to help vaccinate poorer nations; some scientists warn that certain countries like India and others likely won’t ever be able to distribute mRNA vaccines like those being manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, due to the complexity of shipping and storing the vaccines, which must be kept at sub-zero temps.
Dr.Faici:
….That’s not to say the virus isn’t here to stay in some form.
I doubt we’re going to eradicate this…I think we need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic that we have to just be careful about.
Absolutely not. I am autonomous over my own body.
Nobody invades my privacy. Nobody.
Cool story bro
Yep very cool. What will you do when it’s the vaccine or the guillotine?
That sounds way out there, but it is the endgame.
Some of us have seen it coming.
Why does Cayman have a guillotine? XXX
CNS: I don’t know where this utterly insane conspiracy theory about a guillotine here in the Cayman Islands came from, but I urge anyone who hears it to tell the person trying to spread it that they are gullible idiots. Just stop it. It’s beyond stupid. Utter lunacy.
Okay so cayman get the vaccine and what ? You can’t make anybody take the vaccine so sttop the bs and open the borders in a safe and efficient way.
lies, lies, lies…
Anyone who is prepared to take a vaccine without extended clinical trials and evaluation is off their nut. This is ONLY about the $$$. 12 billion of them to be exact.
Did Dr Lee indicate whether its the Pfizer vaccine or. suspect more likely, the AstraZeneca where the UK government has committed to buying 100 million doses of. Because if it is AstraZeneca, there are no comparative figures on effectiveness to the 90% for Pfizer that is getting everyone so excited. And as of a couple of weeks ago the UK government was only expecting delivery of 4 million doses by end of the year, so chances of Cayman getting enough for wholesale vaccination seems unlikely. You can imagine that UK pols wont be falling over themselves to have community vaccination in Cayman when they have enough vaccine for less than 10% of the British population. Suspect its going to be the health professionals and select individuals only.
CNS: Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It’s all the way down in the second sentence. The UK is expecting 10 million doses by the end of this year. I’ve added it into the article.
Im not sure its the best idea to mandate a rushed vaccine on our front line workers first!!!!
So govt wont mandate a vaccine but will heavily push it. How? By saying we cant leave the island (or get back in) without having it? Or by restricting our access to public events, schools, healthcare facilities…??? I have a very bad feeling on exactly how they are going to “promote” this vaccine. Not just in Cayman but all over the world.
Hmmm….this is a curious and perhaps overly-hopeful assessment. Is the vaccine “from the UK” is a UK-developed product, specifically resulting from the Oxford research? If so, that was delayed and won’t be ready for even UK residents by this Christmas. So exactly which vaccine “from the UK” can it be? Is CIG buying the Russian vaccine which is still being tested in Brazil & parts of Africa, or the Pfizer vaccine, having it shipped via UK and calling it “from the UK? I guess that would qualify….not!
CIG, please clarify and give specifics! Many people may be desperate for a vaccine but I doubt many are willing to play Russian Roulette (pardon the pun) with an unknown product.
CNS: Reading is hard, but if you could manage to get all the way through the second sentence, your question is answered.
They not chipping me!
*posted from my smartphone that continuously updates its location to cell towers or computer with multiple unique identifiers to track such as IP and MAC addresses.
When you’re so delusional that you lose all critical thinking ability. This is the Cayman Islands, after all, where we believe a man split an ocean with a stick, snakes could talk up until video cameras were invented, and that we’ve only been here 6000 years despite having geological evidence (Caymanite) that disproves that timeline.
What is your problem? You sound like a fruitcake.
My problem is having to live amongst complete idiots who are voted in by fellow idiots then being told to leave my place of birth by the idiots if I don’t like how idiots run it.
3:37 so you are supposed to be the intellectual one? What a laugh. How about you do yourself and Cayman a favor since you hate it so much…leave.
So smart that I predicted your exact comment coming.
Caymankind my a$$
ahahahaahah
LOL
Even Americans can’t figure out logistics of keeping the vaccine at 75 below Celcius AT ALL TIMES.
There are NO freezers that maintain such low temperature during transportation, shipment, transitions, storing, handling and administering.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine needs to be thawed from -94F and has to be used within five days: the shipping and temperature requirements plus instructions on defrosting, cooling, the window of time in which it has to be used, the number of times the boxes (holding the vaccine) can be opened (2) and the dilution method and timings…then you’ll know what a daft idea it is to entertain having the jab… twice. Good luck with that. So much room for error.
And yet people transport liquid nitrogen at -195C in vacuum flasks all the time.
Cayman will likely never hit the 60-70% of inoculated persons needed to reach an effective bulwark of herd immunity to prevent any significant community spread of the virus
Too many small government conspiracy theory science denying far right ideologues and far right anti vax religious nuts who think praying is the real cure along with the clowns who listen to the Rush Limbaughs and Alex Jones of the world.
Too many older Caymanians who think the real cure for all ails is a combination of some bush tea, honey, rum and fever grass
Half the world is politicising the very act of wearing a mask, any vaccine will be a brand new political firestorm.
As soon as the tourism industry has their way and forces the government to open the borders Rona will be here to stay bobo
the only reasons the CIG has not already opened up fully is that there are elections coming up as anyone with sense can see
Well, you are just a happy little equal-opportunity irritant, aren’t you?
We in Cayman — through the efforts of CIG and health services — have negotiated the ever-evolving landscape of this novel coronavirus. I can’t honestly say that I trust this anticipated vaccine, but I do believe CIG is doing its best to address all our intolerant and impatient concerns.
If every possible solution is discounted, then all which remains is anarchy. Maybe you and me both should give it a rest, yeah? I’ll go first.
Go to venezuela you big government loving buffoon
i need travel….we stuck on this island…..bring it on…i will take it….
Well travel then. Apply to Travel Cayman and get authorisation for home quarantine. Just dont bitch about the 14 days you will have to spend in lockdown – its the price to pay form having complete freedom on island but wanting to get off the rock.
Then take a weekend trip over to the Sister Islands and help support the local economy over there. I had a great time this weekend! First time there in about a decade, soon come back!
I am going to do the same. It is soothingly different. A proper staycation. Sister Islands are so different, and yet the same. “Traffic” on the Brac is two cars going opposite directions, whose drivers stop to talk. Wonderful. Both my grandparents were born there. I hope they never get American chain fast food.
When they make the flight costs reasonable, not before
10% of those dutifully vaccinated (twice) with Pfizer’s brand new “warp speed” RNA antigen – including the elderly – can still get severely ill and possibly die from Covid -19 if we reopen the borders pretending it doesn’t matter anymore. Meanwhile, there are a raft of other vaccines, each targeting different aspects of the novel virus, which are also on the cusp of phase-3 trial completions. We trust we won’t automatically pile all-in on the first vaccine “warp-speed approved” over all the others. The Pfizer one in particular is a heavily GMOed hack of a single strand RNA chain inserted into a double strand DNA chain. Never been done with no long term unintended data.
I have a friend who is actually on the trial with this vaccine and has done well. Yes, they do not know if it’s the actual vaccine but most of the folks that have participated have been fine so let’s not get out of hand in frightening people and the FDA will not just approve because someone says so. Furthermore, this vaccine is the only one that will cover 90% of the virus versus the Flu vaccine which only covers 40 to 60%.
It’s never EVER been done before on humans. Yes, I’m an old fossil, however, I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well.
With a 99% survival rate using the human bodys natural immune system, they dont even need a placebo!
Are mr.MOSES and the other M P’s taking the vaccine ? Mr. Bryan you are always talking, are you going to take the Vaccine ?
And I just looked up and saw a squadron of pigs flying down SMB. This is BS!