Over 7,000 shots given against COVID-19
(CNS): Public Health officials said Wednesday evening that 7,073 people have so far received the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccinations are now taking place at the airport and officials told CNS that the move was to improve efficiency. “The staff are confident that it can be delivered in a non-clinical setting provided there is equipment and supplies to address an emergency should one arise,” a spokesperson said.
Those who have been vaccinated are still asked to sit in a rest area for 15 minutes before leaving the location to ensure that, in the rare event of a side-effect or allergic reaction, medical staff are on-hand,
“The airport terminal with its large space and ample parking improves the efficiency of the vaccine delivery, reducing wait time and speeding the overall process,” the HSA stated in response to inquiries about the decision to move the main location from the hospital to the airport.
Meanwhile, one more person was positive for the COVID-19 virus among the latest batch of 244 tests carried out over the last day. The person is an asymptomatic traveller and one of 27 active cases of the virus, four of which are symptomatic. The person who was in hospital has since been released.
There are currently 879 people in home isolation and in quarantine.
.
Category: Health, Medical Health
Safer to fly the KX Max 8s
After hearing about everyone being able to get their vaccination outside of the guidelines, I went to the airport today to try to get mine.
I am 58 year old generational Caymanian and in decent health so I filled out the form indicating that I didn’t have any health issues. When I arrived at the line was maybe 10 people long. As I got closer to the front of the line, the most hoggish and rude “Caymanian” and yes one of “us” was the health care worker checking everyone in. The guy in front of me (a young expat who showed his Canadian passport) had a white form with nothing on it but his name. She asked him his age which was 32 and told him that he needed to have a underlying condition in order to get it the vaccine today and he responded that he just needed it to travel. She told him that he was not getting today for travel reasons and this was only for people with underlying health issues.. He then told her he has a heart condition, she then turned to him and handed him a green form and told him to fill it out. He filled it out and she allowed him in. Un friggin believable!!!
When I got to her she looked at my form and says “you have to wait until stage 3 and we haven’t even announced that yet!” I said to her that there doesn’t seem to be that many people here, is it possible that I could wait to see if there was any left over? She rudely reiterated to me that I will have to wait until stage 3 is announced. I said to her what about all of the other people that have been allowed in as I have had many friends a lot younger and healthier than me get theirs..She then informed me that that wasn’t true and that is why I couldn’t get in. Upset, I said to her, what about the young expat guy right before me that you allowed to switch forms and say that he had a health condition. How do you prove he has a health condition. Her response was that she had to take his word for it…so absolutely no checks whatsoever!!!! I was livid, I said to her that if I had simply come here, filled out the green form and lied that I had some health condition, I could have gotten it today??…Her response ws, sir you have to come back when we announce stage 3.
So being ethical and a Caymanian means absolutely nothing..
My opinion, I have nothing against expats getting the vaccination but every Caymanian should have been allowed to get it first. Only in Cayman are your treated like crap by your own people and citizens from other countries always have priority over you.
One trawl on face book will show you a different story. A young Caymanian family with no health issues posing having had their vaccination. They are from a prominent very wealthy local family. Clearly they got priority because they were rich and the medical people felt unable to challenge them.
This is so true. One needs only look on Facebook or Instagram and see how many young people are on their bragging that they got their jab.
I totally agree this is all about who you know and how much money you have..and the unfortunate thing is that this is our own Caymanians doing this. We can’t blame the expats or the wealthy Caymanian because just like our corrupt politicians they have conditioned us Caymanians to believe we are inferior and we raise them up to a level that puts us on the bottom rung.
I say to you, fill out the form and write down some type of underlying condition and get your shot if you want it..being honest and ethical in Cayman gets you nowhere.
Remember it is always your own fleas that bite the hardest.
Cayman isn’t for us anymore!
I felt like a Jew arriving at a death camp and the HSA Nurse was like the receiving guard that decided who lived or went to the chambers.
Not the Florence Nightingale Pledge I took or the or Rotarian one my husband took. I felt sorry for the ones she turned away.
Pfizer has acknowledged wide spread issues of temperature controls. Despite best efforts thousands vaccines have to be discarded due to cold chain interruptions during shipments and storage, as well as temperatures going out of range ( Michigan, Florida, California). Thousands doses get spoiled or spilled. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article248828924.html
https://www.wxyz.com/news/coronavirus/21-shipments-of-the-moderna-vaccine-to-michigan-are-no-longer-useable-due-to-transport-error
7,000 vaccines were administered in Cayman and no side effects reported. Either vaccines were compromised(spoiled), or side effects are not being reported. It is simply impossible that 100% of the received vaccines are 100% viable.
There were few requests in comments to clarify vaccines storage, transportation and administering controls, yet it seems to be ignored. Why? What if people receive compromised vaccines?
comprehensive information about vaccine storage and handling:Q&A
https://www.immunize.org/askexperts/storage-handling.asp
P.S. In some US hospitals staff is vaccinated on Fridays for people are unable to get to work next day due to side effects. If no side effects noticed/ reported in Cayman, that is very suspicious.
I had my second dose and had fever and lethargy. I knew this was a possibility having read the literature on the vaccine. There is nothing compromised about the vaccine . It produced the immune response that it was required to do.
Any idea when the second batch of Pfizer Vaccines will arrive for those waiting on their second jab. They should make sure that it is Pfizer and not Oxford vaccine being pumped into them.
Difficult to say when the EU are trying to block the Uk from getting any!
Should have arrived yesterday.
7,000 shots!, that’s as many as you hear each month in Jamaica.
HSA announced a symptomatic traveler is in ICU on the 23rd, and he is released on the 27th? Seems a damn quick recovery – or did the HSA sort of delay telling us about the ICU case?
Lady Garcia says, it was a software issue..he shouldn’t have gotten out..She will try to do better next time.
Well at least they are saying ‘people’ and not ‘residents’any more. Airport is also pretty convenient for the private plane visitors to get their free jab too!
I hope they are tracking the non residents receiving the vaccine because I’m afraid it is going to skew our % vaccinated. We might think we are at 70% when in fact we are only at 60% because of the number of people who were vaccinated while just visiting here this winter.
CNS – can you ask this at the next press conference?
Great BUT still no plan?
1. What is the plan for inbound people that all have the vaccination BUT as children can not get it what will happen. Are we just turning the tourist families away for the next 12 months or longer?
2. Are vacinated tourist going to be tracked like prisoners? What stops them from interacting with unvaccinated locals.
3. What is the date for a reopening, business needs time to plan and we get no infomation from CIG.
Why are we all so quick to say how bad things are in other islands but after they have a small spike and fix the problem they prosper? No news service post a story? We could
have been open last August.
Seychelles, for one, is requiring visitors to be vaccinated if they want to avoid quarantine, but this does not include children. CIG doesn’t seem to have thought this through, though I suspect they are once again fobbing off the travel industry by pretending to give consideration to re-opening, as they seem to do every couple of months!
Sounds great as long as there is the capability to deal with the (highly unlikely) situation of a severe reaction.
11.02am Air ambulance to Miami.
Yes, they are equipped with epinephrine injectors if someone has anaphylaxis because of allergies.
Yesterday Bermuda announced that they are starting to do their own genome sequencing as part of their initiative to better assess the impact of the new more transmissible strains. Is there any chance that Cayman will do that as well? The 3 week turn around time when dealing with CARPA in Trinidad is far too long.
https://www.gov.bm/articles/covid-19-daily-release-27-january-2021
@7:30am
I would love to hear your Health Minister to make comments about it.
I am sure it would end with:
May God be with You, AMEN.
The article you linked to indicates Bermuda is sending 10 samples to CARPHA, the same place and at the same amount Cayman is doing.
A genomic sequencing machine costs between $20,000 to $100,000, as well as a cost per run of about $500.
Nobody gives a rats ass about Bermuda
7:30 stop comparing Cayman to Bermuda or anywhere else. Cayman has set the standard for others to follow.
I get that the parking is better at the airport, but given what has just happened in New Zealand in which in infected incoming traveler spread the virus to the community either by touching a surface such as a door handle or just breathing in a confined space without ever coming into close contact with community members, I think a great deal of care should be taken to physically segregate those coming to get vaccinated from the times and areas used by incoming infected travelers. It would be terrible if apparent convenience led to local spread.
Is no thought given to all of us on the other end of the island? I had my first jab at East End clinic which is local to me. Now I have to travel all the way to the airport for my second? There isn’t even a bus to the airport from East End. Traffic into town is terrible and then there is a long walk from the bus stop to the airport and back. Instead of a 5 minute walk to the clinic, this is going to be almost an all day slog into town and back. Not happy about it. It worked perfectly at East End so why change it?
Carpool?
You are complaining about getting a free vaccine, get over yourself and put a little effort in. It has also been noted that for those unable to attend the main locations that they will be doing district vaccinations just not on a daily basis.
Seriously? Do you have any idea of the masdive effort by tens of thousands of people to create, test, regulate, manufacture and ship this vaccine here in unprecedented time and at vast expense, for FREE to you… and you’re moaning about going to the airport for a jab that could very well save your life or that of your family and friends? Unreal!
The experience today was indeed superior, there was good communication and things went pretty smoothly.
I went today, the airport is the perfect location, plenty of room, the waiting areas are inside in the AC, they had 10 stations.
Actual interaction with the person administering the vaccine was a couple of minutes at most, i would think with 10 lines they could jab 150 to 200 people an hour.
Well dome HSA!
Agreed! I took my jab at George Town Hospital last week. The process ran pretty smoothly, but the facility wasn’t designed for a large number of people waiting around. Plus there was no parking anywhere. The airport makes perfect sense to me.
But what about the freezers? What is keeping the vaccine at the temperature at which it should be kept?
The vaccine being administered is thawed. The freezers are to keep it until it is needed, then batches are thawed & it can be kept in coolers (how it went to Little Cayman & Cayman Brac. They didn’t put the freezers on the plane!!),
Handling Protocols:
Ultra Cold Freezer/Dry Ice -80’C to-60’C until labeled expiry date. Dry Ice Pellets must be replaced within 24hrs of delivery and every 5 days thereafter.
Thawed to Refrigerator 2’C to 8’C takes 2-3 hours. Undiluted thawed vaccine expires in 120 hours (5 days) and cannot be refrozen. Any unused must be thrown out.
Diluted to room temperature vaccine 2’C to 25’C must be used within 6 hours, or thrown out.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/index.html
Me too. Excellent service and facilities at ORIA. Mask required.
Great to hear. We don’t get to say it very often but credit where credit is due; Great job CIG and HSA!
Received mine as well at the airport. Ran very well and a very good place to do it. The airport is made to handle a lot of people lining up.
It was spaced out, organized and comfortable in the airport, and parking was plentiful and stress free. In the absence of an indoor stadium/arena, great idea to do it there!