Sister Islands to join COVID isolation system

| 04/11/2020 | 34 Comments
Cayman News Service
Captain Charles Kirkconnell International Airport, Cayman Brac

(CNS): Residents on Cayman Brac and Little Cayman who return to those islands will be able to quarantine at their homes from Saturday after the government extended this option to the Sister Islands based on the success of the programme in Grand Cayman. Those on either island who meet the established criteria will be able to spend the 14-day COVID-19 isolation period, wearing geofencing monitoring technology, at residences approved by Public Health.

Where travellers reside with other people, all members of the household will be quarantined at the same time and are subject to the same requirements, as is the case on Grand Cayman. Officials said that the process currently in place there will be replicated in Cayman Brac but on a smaller scale and will be managed by the Ministry of District Administration.

“Having to quarantine after travel is a necessary protection for our Islands and being able to spend the time in the comfort of your own home helps to make the sacrifice a little easier,” said TravelCayman Director Dr Tasha Ebanks-Garcia.

Pleased with the success so far, she said the compliance of participants showed that they were taking their quarantine responsibilities seriously.

“Since launching the programme our teams have been continually reviewing and evaluating the processes and technology and are largely satisfied with the results. Where necessary, minor tweaks and adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience and improve response times, and feedback from all quarters has been encouraging,” Dr Ebanks-Garcia added.

The government public health and monitoring teams on the Sister Islands are now being trained to undertake the various responsibilities, including PCR testing at the airport, fitting travellers with their wristbands, setting the geofencing platforms, monitoring and compliance requirements and conducting random spot checks. 

Given that the programme is anticipated to be smaller than Grand Cayman, travellers will be allowed to drive themselves home accompanied by an enforcement vehicle to make sure that no stops are made along the way. 

Residents on the Brac and Little Cayman who wanting to take advantage of the Sister Islands programme, rather than quarantining in a government facility, must first register their travel request using the TravelCayman online portal and should select Cayman Brac or Little Cayman as their preferred quarantine option. If the traveller will quarantine with non-travelling household members, their details must be entered at the same time. Permission is subject to approval by the medical Oofficer of health. If approved, travellers will receive an email from TravelCayman with a Certificate to Travel.

Cayman Airways has scheduled two flights from Miami on Friday, 20 November, and Friday, 4 December, which will stop on Cayman Brac to allow passengers to disembark before the aircraft flies on to Grand Cayman. Based on demand, more flights will be added in the future. For health and safety reasons, no passengers will be permitted to board the flight in Cayman Brac.

Questions or concerns should be directed to the TravelCayman team by emailing TravelCayman@gov.ky
or by calling 743-8463 between 8:30am and 5:00pm, Monday – Friday.
or visit the TravelCayman portal.
For more information on travel, visit Travel & Overseas Guidance.

To book a Cayman Airways flight call 345-949-2311
or 1-800-422-9626 (toll-free in the USA); or book online here.


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Category: Health, Medical Health

Comments (34)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    So Cayman Airways will stop in Cayman Brac to let off one or two passengers that prefer to isolate there? Are they paying for the aircraft to be diverted there or are we the people subsidizing this for one or two passengers? Who came up with this idea? Wouldn’t it be less expensive to bring them here and use one of the Twin Otters to take them there?

    Obviously BA cannot land in the Brac, so how are the people coming in on this plane going to get to the Brac, by barge?

  2. Anonymous says:

    So Cayman Airways will stop in Cayman Brac to let off one or two passengers that prefer to isolate there? Are they paying for the aircraft to be diverted there or are we the people subsidizing this? Who came up with this idea? Wouldn’t it be less expensive to bring them here and use one of the Twin Otters to without any other passengers to take them to the Brac or Little Cayman. H

    Obviously BA cannot land in the Brac, so how are the people coming in on this plane going to get to the Brac, by barge?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Having spent time on Little Cayman this past August there are quite a few places that have poor or no cell service or internet. The electronic tags will not work in houses in those areas so monitored isolation is nonsense in those areas. How is that going to be handled. Is someone from Travel Time going to go to every house to test the internet before granting permission? I don’t think so. I wonder if the people making these decisions even know how to find Little Cayman on a map.

  4. Anonymous says:

    This is madness and all for the sake of a few rich people who want to spend a couple of weeks away from the virus and are willing to risk our health to do it.

  5. Anonymous says:

    The decision to allow people coming from overseas and potentially infected with Covid to share planes with our people flying to between Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman without quarantining first is such an unbelievably bad idea I just do not believe that Dr. Lee approved of this idiocy. His advice was solid, at least up to this point. Who is making such idiotic decisions that run contrary to every rule of public health?

  6. Someone who reads an article before commenting says:

    Did anyone actually read the article? “Cayman Airways has scheduled two flights from Miami on Friday, 20 November, and Friday, 4 December, which will stop on Cayman Brac to allow passengers to disembark before the aircraft flies on to Grand Cayman. Based on demand, more flights will be added in the future. For health and safety reasons, no passengers will be permitted to board the flight in Cayman Brac.”

    • Anonymous says:

      Read the first sentence. People flying to Cayman from Saturday are to be allowed to quarantine on both CB and LC

    • Anonymous says:

      Try reading the first sentence- quarantine on LC and CB permitted from Saturday

    • Anonymous says:

      People are upset about the LC part. The jet won’t be flying into LC. There is only one way to get there: the twin otter. Yep, sharing the plane with the rest of us.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Well, I just cancelled my trip to the Brac..We finally had someplace safe that we could go to get a break from this mess, now they want me to sit on a plane with someone that has just arrived from the major COVID infected countries of the UK and the USA. Worse part is I won’t even know where they came from and could be sitting right next to them.

    I’ll say this again, even Slocum had better sense then these foolish politicians we now have..

    • Anonymous says:

      My family has decided to cancel our holiday on Little for the same reason.

    • Anonymous says:

      If government had any sense I hope they charter those people on a different flight

    • Anonymous says:

      14 of us (3 families) were looking at doing a week’s staycation on the Sister Islands before the end of the year. After reading this article we will probably look at Cayman Kai or East End.

    • Anonymous says:

      Oh my lord. They will not be sharing a plane with you. Please just read

  8. Anonymous says:

    It would be crazy to move people to Little Cayman on the tiny plane that goes there. I understand that people from overseas who own property on Little Cayman may want to escape the virus where they are, but the only way I can see getting them there safely would be to use some kind of private water taxi from the Brac. Does anybody on the Brac have a boat that could do that?

    • Anonymous says:

      This is actually the plan. They will not be sharing a plane with non-travellers.

      • Anonymous says:

        Is that official because there is nothing in the press release that I have seen that says that a water taxi service will be used?

  9. Caymanian says:

    Where are the press briefings!! All these new rules and regulations with quarantine, COVID-19, flights. Etc. and there hasn’t been a national briefing on any of this. Holidays are approaching very soon and we have heard little on how they are going to move foward with that

    • Anonymous says:

      A press briefing on this subject would allow embarrassing questions to be asked and bad decisions to be highlighted.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Are passengers coming through Grand from eg UK, Miami. Jamaica. Honduras be allowed to fly with othet passengers from Grand to Brac in the small planes ,?

  11. Anonymous says:

    They trying hard to spread the c-virus in Cayman Brac.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Shorter title would have been, “Spread of Covid to Sister Islands planned”.

  13. Anonymous says:

    Great idea. Lets move all the people with Covid who are on Grand over to the Brac and then we can advertise that Grand is Covid free and open to tourists. Perfect plan. Why was it not done earlier before most of us ran out of money?

  14. Anonymous says:

    It is about time that they spread the Covid around.

  15. Anonymous says:

    There goes that staycation idea. Who wants to fly to Little Cayman with a bunch of potentially infected people.

  16. Anonymous says:

    Umm, how do people get to Little Cayman without exposing others? This seems like insanity.

  17. Anonymous says:

    What happens with somebody with Covid quarantines on Little Cayman and needs to go on a breathing machine. Do those exist on Little Cayman?

  18. Anonymous says:

    So will people going to Little Cayman for staycations be sharing the little plane that goes to Little Cayman with people coming directly from places like the the US or UK or Jamaica where the Covid virus is out of control?

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