81% of over 60s get first COVID shot

| 22/02/2021 | 61 Comments
COVID-19 vaccine clinic at ORIA

(CNS): Almost 20,000 shots have gone into the arms of over 12,200 people in the COVID-19 national vaccine programme. So far, 81% of the over 60s have received at least a first shot, inching towards the target to get 90% of seniors full vaccinated against this coronavirus with both doses before the end of this month. Premier Alden McLaughlin has said that once that target is reached, the mandatory quarantine period for travellers would be cut from 14 to ten days.

According to the latest figures, 87% of the over 70s have had at least one shot but it’s not clear what percentage of older members of the community have had the full vaccine course. In total 7,693 people have had both shots, which includes healthcare and front-line workers.

Government continues to take a cautious approach to re-opening the borders and has indicated that the next step is to reduce the quarantine period before making any other changes to the rules regarding the border and who can be allowed into Cayman.

Over the weekend another three travellers tested positive for coronavirus and there are now 26 active cases of the virus in Cayman among the 729 people in quarantine and isolation, with one person said to have symptoms of the virus. Cayman has now recorded 431 positive cases of COVID-19 since testing began last March.


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Comments (61)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    CNS, I have asked this question repeatedly and can’t seem to get an answer.. I know there are no longer press briefings but certainly someone in the Government must know..Maybe Dr. Lee?

    There are 10 lines at the airport where you can get vaccinated. At any time there maybe at the most 10 people standing in line. The most that are able to get vaccinated in any one day is about four hundred which is absolutely appalling particularly when we can do more than that in testing everyday.

    There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people like myself waiting to get vaccinated. There does not appear to be any shortage of the vaccine. Why not split the airport in two groups, one for the first shot and one for the second shot??..If we do this, everyone can come when they want to come and we don’t have nurses and staff sitting around waiting on people to show up. Instead of one Nurse putting 40 shots into arms per day, wouldn’t it be better to have that nurse doing twice that amount?

    At this rate, it will be Christmas before anyone that wants a shot will get one.

    By the way I have tried on more than one occasion to go there at the end of the day to see if they had any left over and even though they did, the guerrila interrogator guarding the entrance would not allow me to get it..Instead they haul the leftovers back to the hospital. This is absolute madness. I’m there, there is no one waiting, I can see the vaccinators sitting there waiting with nothing to do..Come on, we can do better than this? It just takes a little common sense and a thought about being more efficient.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Get the borders opened up please!

  3. Anonymous says:

    The vaccines don’t stop you getting it, don’t stop you spreading it, don’t really do much else apart from preventing 0.15% of the world from maybe dying from it if they ever got it. And yet, now they’re talking about vaccine passports! Forcing people to inject themselves against something they won’t get or suffer from.
    More will die from regular colds and flus. Those dying with covid are not mostly dying from covid. More will die from lockdowns. Countries have thrown out the official WHO guides to pandemics based on what they saw in Wuhan this time last year.
    Masks don’t really do much if anything.
    We’ve lost our minds.

    • anon says:

      12.23pm Sounds like you lost yours long before Covid.

    • Anonymous says:

      I certainly believe you have lost your mind..Did you actually believe what you just wrote?

      I can’t help but shake my head at some of the idiocracy spewn on her..

  4. Anonymous says:

    Boy oh boy, Government and their BS statistics/percentages again.

    “Impossible” for Dr Lee to determine who received vaccines in the over 60 group were permanent resident versus visitors but they can come up with a percentage needed locally for reopening.

    Whatever it takes to follow the narrative huh guys?

  5. Anonymous says:

    so if the mortality/serious illness risk to our population is now at the same level as seasonal flu….why do we not open our borders?

    • Anonymous says:

      because the plan is to destroy the economies.

      oooops… I am the fake news and mainstream media is right.

      no, government is following the plan to destroy the economy.

    • Anonymous says:

      Probably because seasonal flu does not kill 2.5mln previously healthy people a year, or give people lasting medical complications/paralysis. Normal flu season mortality is around 0.1%, and if Covid-19 is 3.0%, that’s 30 times worse than a normal flu year.

      • Anonymous says:

        Another government statistician….

      • Anonymous says:

        re-read the op.
        if the risk to the population, through vaccination, is reduced to the same level as seasonal flu, why can’t border be re-opned?

        • Anonymous says:

          I did reread it. Where exactly did you find the reference to the risk being the same after vaccination. Must have been in invisible ink. And how exactly is the risk post vaccination going to be reduced to flu levels when we still only have less than 20% of the population vaccinated.

  6. Anonymous says:

    The incubation time remains up to 14 days. That means as numbers are applied, the disease will inevitably slip through the 4 day crack we’re opening and start moving in our community. The Pfizer vaccine is pretty good, but it is only perhaps 30% effective against the South African variant, which may become dominant strain in weeks ahead. We are kidding ourselves if Reopen-Cayman and Tourism Conflicted think we can negotiate with clinical statistics as though they don’t matter. They do.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Send out the iguana cullers to get the anti-vaxers with vaccination dart guns. There, problem solved.

  8. Anonymous says:

    As our government is so bad at statistics how do we know the number of people resident in the age categories?
    When I got my shot no record was kept of my age or residency. My passport stamp was not looked at and no log that I saw. If they are just counting shots in arms then they included students on my day – which was supposed to be the over 60’s. Also Fosters staff there & policemen.

    • Anonymous says:

      Date of Birth is put at the top of the consent form, and on the Vaccination card handed in. Your CI Passport, or DL, or Work Permit paperwork demonstrates you reside here and/or are in the category being served – ID type also noted on the docs above. Doctor’s note is now required to corroborate pre-existing higher risk conditions. I concede that prioritizing wanderlust teens returning to college, during online learning, is a bit baffling.

      • Anonymous says:

        I don’t have a CI passport & they didn’t look for an immigration stamp when I went. If they counted me as resident in their statistics of over 60’s vaccinated they are inflating their numbers .
        On the consent form all info accurate.
        My employer was ‘retired’
        My residence is my sons home – where I’ve been since xmas & will be leaving to go to my home in Europe at easter.

      • Anonymous says:

        Doctor’s note is NOW required?! You mean I could have walked in and made something up before (!!!) but NOW I have to get my doctor, who’ll do anything for me, to write a letter? What safeguards…ridiculous.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Seriously, the rest of the world has accepted that Covid-19 is here to stay and started to plan for the future.

    • Anonymous says:

      Because humanity are being led by revisionists kowtowing to big pharma. A year on, the “real” world is stuck in a deadly all-pleasing purgatory of being partially open, partially closed, hoping it will all go away, even as death count marches higher. A plan centered on collective disregard is not a future that is working, especially for the 2.5mln already dead. It’s actually making the problem worse by allowing more dangerous variants to take hold and spread, with new more worrying versions emerging every couple weeks now. It’s frustrating because it could all be over in a few months if humanity collectively decided to lockdown hard like we did. It’s not impossible. There’s just no will to do what’s necessary, ironically, because it trespasses on misplaced, and short-sited constructs of “freedom”. Recall how the planet (and western media) were aghast that “China” could unthinkably tolerate 80,000 cases, build 5000-bed hospitals in days, and then locked down their citizens. In hindsight, these were not bad ideas…and those were months before the virus got to North America.

      • Anonymous says:

        And you believe the Chinese information? I don’t.

        • Anonymous says:

          The whole planet saw satellite photos of giant field hospitals built in a matter of days. It was global news before the end of 2019. Why did anyone need China to confirm there was a serious health threat?

    • Anonymous says:

      You miss the fact that it may well be there to stay, but it is not here at all.

      • Anonymous says:

        What about all those people in quarantine then? The cases including the two deaths ? And the forty or so cases now?When anyone looks at Cayman Island stats, those are the numbers.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Open it up to anyone who wants it. You can’t just leave us dangling to find out AFTER getting covid that we have a pre-existing condition

  11. Anonymous says:

    Question – if we are at 81% after prioritising over 60’s from the start, how are we going to convince that 9% who have clearly decided not to take the vaccine that opening up our Islands depends on them getting on with it. They have had their chance, time to move the goalposts to 80% and those not having the vaccine will have to take extra precautions. The world cannot stop for much longer, and travel will start opening up to those that have taken the vaccine. 90% is likely not achievable.

    • Anonymous says:

      The only reason we are still talking about COVID-19 is that the world never wanted to stop, even for a couple months. Consequently, the world is in a zombie-like half-open-half-shut limbo where nothing works properly. Cayman closed, and we reaped the rewards. Now we are supposed to trade that in and return to masks, sterilizing, and distancing, so that a few fat-cat millionaires can sip daiquiris at Bar Jack and line DARTs pocket. It doesn’t even make sense.

    • Anonymous says:

      Ask and you shall receive. Alden just changed the goal posts to now 80% of population before reopening, pushing back to april/may. At the current rate of vaccination this goal will not, if ever, be attained any time soon.

  12. Ross William Ulbricht says:

    Still waiting for the reports of demonic possessions, privacy invasion / microchip tracking and growth of third arms that the Facebook/Instagram conspiracists were SO confident would happen.

    My husband works at a Christian private school in Grand Cayman, and according to him, some staff are literally teaching students (and another staff) that the vaccine is the work of Satan and that it is the mark of the beast.

    Given that Juju hollered Leviticus in parliament against the gays, I’m not surprised this is religious misinformation is tolerated within ‘educational’ institutions. Oh well, they’re private I guess.

    • Anakin says:

      Indoctrination into a belief system that highly discourages any sort of critical thinking is part of the reason why our people commonly exhibit such backwards mentalities.

    • Anonymous says:

      I remember when JFK assassination and UFOs were conspiracy theories. What happened with those again?

      • Anonymous says:

        They are still conspiracy theories – sorry. You are not mainstream yet. Keep wearing the tinfoil hat.

        • Anonymous says:

          Ignorance must really be bliss for you. Keep your head in the sand there buddy.yes, everything’s peachy and governments never lie 🤫

  13. Anonymous says:

    How many people are now being vaccinated daily at the airport? Both times I’ve been there, half the nurses were standing around waiting. Ramp up the pace please, let’s not become complacent. It only takes one breach to endanger our bubble!

    • Anonymous says:

      I had the same experience last week (weekday) when I got vaccinated. No lineup at all and many open nurses stations.

      The rate is about 400 per day over the last 10 days. It would take 45 days at that rate to use up the 18K doses left in freezers. And I assume more coming on BA either this week or March 11th.

      Agree, time to pick up the pace and open up eligibility. Vaccines are of little use sitting in a freezer!

    • Anonymous says:

      The bubble is going to be burst via scheduled pre-election political disregard of the clinical incubation period, and reversion to the same flawed symptom-based self-evaluation, that fails other places. These are the very reasons there is still a global pandemic, and mutating new strains, reinfecting previous survivors. The Unity Regime are trading-in our accumulated knowledge and achievement for a lower standard that benefits few, and will likely kill Caymanians, perhaps even some that have already been fully vaccinated…and they really don’t care.

  14. Anonymous says:

    The remainder have had more than ample opportunity. Time to move on.

  15. Pall mall free loader says:

    Yes counting visitors who got their shots too n doubt o got to get that magic number eh no matter what it takes? yes 1043 you obvious did not get the worldwide tourism memo or what or are you just plain stupid tourist won’t be back right now or are you pushing for the US &European experience ? Lockdown lockdown and riots then more lockdown ? What happen to you ain’t get your stipend yet?

  16. Anonymous says:

    A world class performance by CIG.

  17. Anonymous says:

    You are doing well!

  18. Anonymous says:

    Lets get this place open before the other half of the country that depends on tourism starve to death.

    • Anonymous says:

      The other half of the country that depend on tourism largely ain’t from here. The derisory and inconsistent wages that they received kept many in poverty. Much better in the medium to long term to have them re-skill into more stable and remunerative roles, including in high end tourism. We need to do away with the mass market crap that has tainted our environment and taxed our potential and our infrastructure for too long.

    • Anonymous says:

      Half? It’s at most 5%

    • Anonymous says:

      In a good year, tourism amounts, at best, to less than 25% of GDP. That includes the state-owned and foreign airlines, foreign-owned chain hotels and jewelry store revenue. The businesses that rely on tourism are mostly staffed by foreign permit holders that were sent home long ago; and that revenue only benefits a concentrated handful of local business oligarchs, and foreign cruise ship companies that aren’t delivering customers. There’s nearly zero community trickle down to those needing a hand-up, muted philanthropic community reinvestment, and limited impact on anyone beyond their tight circle. If these businesses are telling you they didn’t save a nickel for a rainy day, they are either lying, or should have been out of business anyway (clearly not having taken the free professional restructuring advise offered in spring 2020).

  19. Anonymous says:

    Almost to the goal! Must be time for them to move the goal post again.

    • Anonymous says:

      Just mention a new strain somewhere in Moldovia – that should do it

      • Anonymous says:

        Laugh if you want, but we know a PCR test comes back either positive or negative. PCR testing does not provide any diagnostic on the flavour circulating in communities – those are separate and more rigorous tests. The first UK variant is thought to likely be the dominant strain in North America and Europe, but will be overtaken shortly by the sneakier mutated spike protein of the South African variant (for which the full double dose Pfizer vax is perhaps 30% effective). There’s a Finnish strain reported a week ago that doesn’t even show up on a PCR test. Against these facts, calamitous second, and cusp of third waves, our corrupt regime has decided to unimaginably loosen travel restrictions as a pre-election popularity stunt.

        https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/news-in-brief/18735-new-covid-variant-found-in-finland-may-not-show-up-in-tests.html

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