11 travellers arrive with COVID over Easter break

| 06/04/2021 | 48 Comments
HSA photo

(CNS): Eleven positive cases of COVID-19 turned up among the more than one thousand tests carried out over the Easter break, despite the requirement for pre-arrival testing and the increasing rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the UK and the US. As a result, there are now 29 people with active cases of the virus among the undisclosed number currently in quarantine and isolation, with four of them suffering symptoms. Meanwhile, health officials are switching focus in the vaccine programme to the youngest age group, with plans for a vaccine party this weekend to encourage 16-24 year olds to get their shots.

Right now, less than a quarter of the estimated residents in the youngest age group have received the vaccine, the smallest fraction of the 31,151 people who have received at least one shot.

But if Cayman is to reach government’s target of more than 75% of the entire population being vaccinated before the borders can open, the youngest people will also need to get their shots. But statistics from all over the world consistently show that young people are the least impacted by the virus, unless they are suffering from pre-existing health conditions.

So to get them protected and hopefully stop them from being potential conduits for the variants that scientists worry could outpace the vaccines, health officials are hosting a vaccination drive at Camana Bay on Friday, 9 April.

Health Services Authority staff will be providing vaccinations in the Doctors Hospital clinic between 3 and 7pm with the ‘vac-CI-NATION party’ taking place on Forum Lane. This free event is exclusively for 16-24 years old, who must present their vaccination card showing their first or second COVID shot to receive entry.

Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee said he would like to see an increase in uptake of the vaccine within this age group.

“It is likely that those younger will suffer less in terms of the burden of illness,” he said. “Nevertheless, the new variants appear to be affecting young groups more than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus so the young are not ‘immune’. Additionally, the young are a significant cause of spread for this highly infectious virus, so they may inadvertently transmit the virus to the vulnerable, loved ones, friends and colleagues. This itself will cause illness and deaths.”

Encouraging the target demographic to come to the event, he also thanked those young people who have already come forward for the shot. “I ask they talk to their peers openly about the vaccine and side-effects from the injection. There are many myths and misconceptions about this vaccine and some people are nervous about side-effects, however, most have little to no side-effects, with the most common being arm soreness, tiredness, fever and chills. Side effects from the vaccine are minimal compared to the life threatening symptoms that could come with contracting COVID-19,” Dr Lee added.

Health Services Authority staff will be on site to answer questions about the vaccine. Those aged 16 or 17 must have parent present for consent for the jab. The vac-CI-NATION event will feature DMS Broadcasting DJ Dave Kelly, who will be providing music from 5 – 7pm. There will also be a photo booth and raffle prizes, with the opportunity to win $100 Camana Bay Gift Cards, as well as treats and drinks.

See here for more information.


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Category: Health, Medical Health

Comments (48)

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  1. Pastor Alfredo says:

    “29 people with active cases of the virus among the undisclosed number currently in quarantine and isolation, with four of them suffering symptoms.”

    So that’s 86% of the current cohort of positives exhibiting absolutely no symptoms whatsoever. What were the symptoms again? A new cough and losing your sense of taste for a bit. I’m not sure that really warrants the “suffering” noun for the four with symptoms does it? Someone with sore arm and a fever that leaves them bedridden for a couple of days after a jab probably “suffers” more than 99.9% of covid “victims”.

    No shame from government or the CMO on the vaccine party either. Pushing vaccines with unknown long term side effects on children who clearly don’t want it and obviously don’t need it by bribing them with prizes and gift cards. A year ago this would rightly have been dismissed as authoritarian, unethical nonsense but in the blink of an eye a vocal minority of the world are calling for our kids to be inoculated against their will for some shiny trinkets.

    If you’re worried about covid then get the jab. If you’ve had the jab the selfish unjabbed kids who don’t want to play roulette with their health for the next 60 years can’t harm you any more.

    Pastor Alfredo

  2. Anonymous says:

    Crazy to let in people that have no real reason to be here. NO TOURIST ALLOWED IN, PERIOD AT THIS TIME.

  3. Anonymous says:

    I love these daily reports. Positive people everywhere. and still no one has died….GO FIGURE….

    CNS: Two people have died and a few have been extremely ill.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Yeah America with the highest numbers far higher than the world’s average is the country’s policies we should emulate.

  5. Anonymous says:

    To the best of my knowledge, the CIG has never had a false positive.

    We know that is impossible but that is the party line and at one point resulted in a whole bunch of families being locked down when there was a questionable test on a school aged child last year.

    If you keep testing people you will find positives. In fact if you could go back in time to 2018 and started testing people you would find false positives. That is how the tests work.

    • Anonymous says:

      Hello….student at Prospect was an admitted false positive. Dr Lee explained then that HSA runs the tests through more cycles than needed and it makes them sensitive enough to pick up other coronavirus strains like the COLD!

  6. Anonymous says:

    just make sure all positives are required to stay in cig quarantine…not the nonsense home-quarantining system

  7. Anonymous says:

    A kegger and some weed that should be incentive enough for the 16-24 year olds

  8. DANIEL JOHNS says:

    Well, if we had not let folks with no regard for the laws of their own land, how does one expect them to have any for the laws of a foreign one. Neighbors got in on Friday night, and was expecting them to quarantine from N Y, only on Saturday and Sunday they were off galavanting.. so If we are going to quarantine everyone, anyone who breaks it should be held accountable. If you can go to jail for a 22 bullet, you should go to jail, fined, and barred from the Islands..

    • Anonymous says:

      Cayman bends over for American cash. COVID will be ripping through our community soon if this keeps up.

    • Anonymous says:

      Did you report them to travel cayman?

      • DANIEL JOHNS says:

        I did not… Did not know it was my job to oversee travelers, who for some reason are allowed to run amok.. thought that was why they put trackers on them and made the police aware, not to mention they are driving a vehicle allll around with Conneticut plates on it.. You have to be blind not to notice the difference, or just not care..

        • Anonymous says:

          It is your job. It’s all of our jobs. You just said anyone who breaks quarantine should be held accountable. And they would be if you reported it. Police can’t be everywhere. Do your part.

      • Anonymous says:

        Name them and shame them!!

  9. Anonymous says:

    From CNN today:

    As many as one in three people infected with Covid-19 have longer term mental health or neurological symptoms, researchers reported Tuesday.

    They found 34% of Covid-19 survivors received a diagnosis for a neurological or psychological condition within six months of their infection, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.

    The most common diagnosis was anxiety, found in 17% of those treated for Covid-19, followed by mood disorders, found in 14% of patients.

    And while the neurological effects are more severe in hospitalized patients, they are still common in those who were only treated as outpatients, the researchers note.

    • Anonymous says:

      And now post the study on all the mental health issues from people being locked up and depression even when they did not have it.

      You also forgot to post the CNN article that says the world will see a death wave from chronic illnesses due to people not being able to access / travel to or afraid of seeking medical care which will probably be worse than the death rate of the virus.

      • Anonymous says:

        What rubbish. You really need to get educated and informed. Please site the study that is ‘predicting’ a ‘DEATH WAVE.’

        Absurd, fear-mongering. YOU referred the report as to be believed. Did you do a tiny bit of investigating if it was accurate, or did you cherry-pick a convenient sound-bite to promote an ill-informed bias?

        Waiting for data…
        Waiting for data…
        Waiting, zzzzzzzz………

    • Anonymous says:

      So people are nuts. Already knew hat.

    • Pastor Alfredo says:

      I think it’s fair to say that majority of the world has been anxious about the effects of lockdown and moodier than a gold ring at a pawn shop for the past year because of the ongoing situation.

      Maybe I should have just caught covid. I’d have had a 66% chance of having neither of these side effects according to the study cited.

      Pastor Alfredo

  10. Anonymous says:

    Wow I thought this foolishness had stop with the level of testing being allegedly done. Covid Passports etc I hope we don’t end up like Bermuda or like elsewhere where it is now seriously effecting children who have no vaccine.

  11. Anonymous says:

    They should go into quarantine and the negative people should not. If you test negative before you board and when you land and are vaccinated, there is no need to quarantine!

    • Anonymous says:

      After all these months do you SERIOUSLY believe that?? Please read up on the definition of an incubation period.

    • Anonymous says:

      Wow. 15 months later folks still – STILL are drinking the cool-aid.

      Sorry, no supported logic for your opinion.

  12. Anonymous says:

    The longer we wait to open OUR COUNTRY to visitors, the better off we will be.

    US, UK and Canada cannot, repeat cannot, get Covid under control- so not sure why we are taking the extreme risk of allowing said visitors into the country at this time. Sure it may only be 3, or 5 or 6 or 9 or whatever amount of cases in each batch…..but it only took 1 off of a cruise ship to bring it into OUR SHORES.

    I pray that the STRONG and SAFE slogan is true and not GREED, COLLUSION AND CORRUPTION…..have a good day CAYMAN.

    It is just a matter of time before some variant spreads in our community and our greedy leaders will have to put the country in another lockdown.

    • Anonymous says:

      Your comment is 100% lies and fear-mongering.

      COVID-19 is not yellow fever or ebola. It is harmless to 99% of the world’s population.

      Signed: A happy Floridian.
      Never been in a lockdown and all my neighbors/family are alive and thriving and living their lives.

      • Anonymous says:

        Shame on you. You are extremely selfish and insensitive to the hundreds of thousands of people who have prematurely lost loved ones, including those without pre-existing conditions. You are an example of a person who gives Americans a bad reputation. Shame.

        • Anonymous says:

          Actually a very typical American. Well… very typical of about 40% of Americans, which makes him pretty damned typical.

        • Anonymous says:

          Drop the selfish part, for you’re as selfish as everybody else. And stop guilt-tripping as well.

          Secondly, we have become victims of our own success. With advancements in technology and medical sciences, we are now able to accommodate those who are feeble minded and equally feeble in body. I am all for compassion, but there comes a point where compassion can be so excessive as to become overindulgent, where compassion engenders the very shortcomings that necessitate compassion in the first place.

      • Anonymous says:

        I stopped reading your comment at floridian,
        Are you by any chance family to the famous florida man.

      • Anonymous says:

        Using your own (false) numbers, which 1% of Caymanians should suffer, and possibly even die, so you can come on a vacation without quarantining?

      • Anonymous says:

        Or, you are a basement dweller somewhere in Quebec! We will never know.

        I do hope ‘all your neighbors/family are alive and thriving’… We also shall never know!

    • Anonymous says:

      Stop your fear-mongering. UK is easing restrictions as of next week. The USA has vaccinated more people than anyone and its numbers are down as well, not to mention the USA did not lock people in their houses like animals.
      Canada …. Well they have no vaccines.

      There is no reason a date should not be set for or opening. We have the vaccine and vaccinated travellers should be allowed in without isolation.

      • Anonymous says:

        Well let’s see how UK gets on this time, after each opening has come another lockdown.

      • Anonymous says:

        Actually (I’m in the USA) many folks here certainly feel that they WERE locked in their houses like animals. Kind of like London during the blitz… “This isn’t fair, you’re taking my rights away. It’s my right to play in the yard – the bombs won’t hit me.”

        And yes, they are ill-informed, and are now refusing to get the vaccines.

        I actually support that they should not get vaccinated… Evolution will fix that matter.
        And, I will fully support better health care in the USA to take care of these knuckle-heads who will have life-long respiratory, digestive, cardiac, etc issues due to exposure to Covid since they refused vaccination. I am compassionate.

        • Anonymous says:

          I’m from the USA and was locked down from March to June. In July, a mask mandate was in my state, but we were no longer completely locked down. We went to the grocery store, gyms were open, restaurants were open for takeout and eating outside, the beach was open and plenty of people enjoyed the good weather. Some schools opened for summer programs. Some schools have been opened since September with students sitting 6 ft apart (now down to 3 ft apart) and wearing masks, stores are still open, gyms open, restaurants are open for inside and outside eating. People are getting vaccinated. Many around where I live have been traveling since October and have gone on several trips. Lately, now that most have been vaccinated, people are really talking about traveling for summer. Life has continued.

  13. Anonymous says:

    11 more positive – I find it difficult to believe that people are not getting into the country with fake pre-tests

    • Anonymous says:

      Some number are false positives. Further tests would help show how many, but no one is really interested. Lock them all up is the policy. The testing really makes no difference.

  14. Anonymous says:

    Why is it a big secret where these positives are coming from? Flights are mostly coming from London, Miami & Jamaica….should be very easy for Government to say totals for each place.

    There is either a flaw in the pretest or in HSA tests (most likely their practice of over-testing). A few positives slipping through make sense but not 11 and 12 at a time. My guess is it’s part of the “keep us worried” plan to justify no updates until after elections.

    • BeaumontZodecloun says:

      I believe that the rapid antigen tests are what most travelers are using, because of the quick turnaround. This test is prone to higher false positives than the PCR test, but also have a higher chance of detecting infection, so it balances out.

      • Anonymous says:

        That makes no sense. You are saying false positives but travelers are testing negative before arriving. You mean false negatives? They do PCR tests here not rapid antigen tests.

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