Clock ticks on shelf life for 5,000 vaccines
(CNS): Public health officials are urging members of the public who have not yet had a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to come forward as there as still 5,000 left that will go to waste if they are not taken up by 9 June. Over the last day another 265 people were vaccinated, bringing the total number of people who have had the first shot of the vaccine to 39,251 or over 60% of the estimated population, with 52% of the population having completed the full course. There were no new cases of the coronavirus among travellers Wednesday, and the current number of active cases remains at 18 asymptomatic people in quarantine and isolation.
Visit the HSA coronavirus page for the latest schedule and updates.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
Gardeners, pool boys need to get the vaccine! Please encourage them to get it.
As an expat I agree with Beaumont about the spinners.On the vaccines what records does Govt keep?, when I was vaccinated I was not asked for ID on either visit and when I was given my vaccination card completed by the innoculator, I had to fill in my name on the front myself. If border officials question the card, how can we prove it’s genuine?.
We were blessed with the aggressive stance we took in the beginning with the shutdown of the country, the arrival of the tests, and the roll out of the vaccine.
Few here got sick, only one resident died from complications intensified due to covid.
Few on island pressed their hands against the glass of an ICU as they saw their loved one hooked up to a ventilator.
few have had to say goodbye to an unresponsive loved one who lost their battle.
A friend lost her husband today. Fit, strong, 60 years old.
We have been complacent because the virus only effected us economically. We never experienced first hand the tragic wrath of this virus.
Take the jab, stop the spread, stay healthy. Don’t throw away god’s gift in his name. The vaccine is a miracle, protect your most precious asset, protect your family.
5,000 vaccines to go
Half later, half for first shots
So 2,500 first shots to go
250 shots per day
10 days, at that rate, to 2,500
~ 20 days to go before June 9th cut-off
Should about use up all the vaccines then.
Still not a stellar conclusion to the current stage of the vaccination programme but (if they keep pushing / on this pace) at least doses should not be wasted.
There may also be a number of people who have not taken the second dose!
We need a push to make that happen .. and make sure the first timers of last weekend get the second dose.
Caymanians should realise how fortunate they are to have been given the chance of being vaccinated when so many others in the world would be so grateful for this. Having to tempt people to have this by basically bribing them is immoral. If they don’t have it it’s their choice. But don’t expect any sympathy if they catch Covid.
I wish I could enjoy the elegance of knowing everything like you. I made my choice based upon profound research, and I hope you did the same, and made an informed choice, instead of following the herd. It sounds like we made the same one.
Judgement doesn’t belong to you or me. If any of us catch Covid, they should be afforded the same care as if they were ill or injured with any other disease. All residents here should stand together, as we’ve all gone through much the same situations and changes. We are an eclectic group of folk who share many commonalities.
I guess you can tell, I’m pretty damn sick of reading people shamed for making a choice different from that of the poster. “Immoral” my ass. What is immoral is your judgement of people without knowing anything about their situation or condition or lives.
Some people in the US had to wait weeks and months to get the shot in the beginning , staying on the phone to make an appointment for days, waiting in long lines in snowstorms and rainy, cold weather and there , it is waiting and available and people are not running to get the shot. There are many other countries who have not received vaccines yet. Don’t look ungrateful to the world.
Seems like the wirus mutating (Indian variant) again, so these vaccines my not help in the long term. We reach the target, open the borders and the Indian variant enters. What do we do then?
If you haven’t been vaccinated, you pray
You might want to even if you are vaccinated! Also remember we have to protect children too.
If you care about the people, you might pray either way.
Well………. unless you know everything about the virus and the long-term effects and how it will mutate and what that means for all of us worldwide. If you know that, they you might be able to get by with a celestial fistbump.
Its unlikely going to evade vaccinated people. sequencing data suggests that coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses, probably because of a ‘proofreading’ enzyme that corrects potentially fatal copying mistakes. A typical SARS-CoV-2 virus accumulates only two single-letter mutations per month in its genome — a rate of change about half that of influenza and one-quarter that of HIV.
Stop spreading miss information
Stop Miss Spelling! And you may want to read some scholarly articles suggesting that variants can get around the current vaccines.
read the science….vaccines aer effective against variants and especially at preventing serious illness.
You might want to read the science too. The problem here is that there are so many experts on CNS spouting stuff they have read, but have they understood it? Scholarly articles have a target audience. Just as technical documents are aimed at people with technical knowledge, scholarly scientific articles are written for scientists. They have to be dumbed down for the general population. This is why you find splits in opinion on Climate change and other controversial subjects. Not all medical people are for vaccinations either. People are free to make choices and it should be respected, but on this forum there are many who seem to think the unvaccinated should be punished one way or another.
The Pfizer vaccine is very effective against all variants, including Indian variants
https://m.dw.com/en/vaccines-appear-effective-against-india-covid-variant/a-57344037
PACT Government – go bigger on the prizes like the US state of Ohio is doing, offer weekly drawings to all adult Caymanian and those with PR for a chance to win $50,000 until 09 June. Funds could be donated by businesses….
Sad that persons have to be so strongly encouraged to do something so simple for the greater good of all as well as themselves. Imagine if this hesitancy persisted with Small Pox….
You think its sad that people have to be bribed to do something so simple in the public interest, but your response is that the prizes are too small and instead the private sector should finance $50K a week to improve the bribe?
We are now so entitled that not only do we have to be bribed to protect our own health and that of the community, but we are not prepared to get out of bed for anything less than the chance to win nearly 5 times the annual minimum wage. Hey, why don’t we require employers to offer people prizes for turning up for job interviews, rewards for getting an annual health check, a prize for walking past a fat food joint, for giving up smoking, or for not drinking and driving?
Even better, lets take the risk out of the situation and just give anyone who turns up for a vaccination $200 in cash? Lets get around the problem that people may not think that the chances of their winning something are worth their effort in getting off their backside and down to a vaccination center. Another 5000 people at $200 a pop is $1 million – cheap price to pay for an open border. And cheaper than $50K a week.
I am an expat. Make vaccines mandatory for work permit holders. I feel mi Jamaican brethren not getting the vaccine because of the boogie man. Let the bible thumping Caymanians deal with their own fall out of not being vaccinated after the borders open.
Open the borders!
Jesus this is so racist!!
How is this racist? He is talking about nationalities and cultural differences not race. Good grief people why do we have to call things racist every 10 seconds? Jamaica is not a race nor is Cayman. Read a book before you start accusing people of being racist.
This is pretty tame for around here haha.
The taxi driver the government hired to drive me to my quarantine spot yesterday said he hadn’t taken the shots.
You will live, I guarantee. In the last 2 weeks my mom was taken by ambulance with 4 paramedics to a hospital in Florida, had contact with at least 50 people in there, took Uber back home after spending 3 days in cardiology under observation. Wasn’t wearing a face mask in her room. Came in negative, still negative.
Glad your Mom didn’t have an adverse outcome. But I am guessing that the paramedics were wearing face masks, as was anyone who came into her room whilst she was there, as the Florida health protocols would mandate that. And that she had to wear a face mask in public areas ion the hospital – hell, by law you have to wear one in Walmart let alone a hospital – so your post basically comes down to the fact that she didn’t have to wear one when she was alone in the room and the Uber driver didn’t make her wear one. Even though Ubers policy is that both drivers and passengers must wear one.
And from that we are meant to infer that there is nothing to be worried about. Got it.
Oh my Gosh how horrifying that someone made a decision contrary to your belief!
So they should still be giving any doses out to people up until June 30th. If not they need to hold back the number needed for second doses after June 9th and send the rest to Jamaica or Haiti.
In any event they should be saying what the plan is.
So now they need to do some work and get a mobile vaccine clinic going round to worksites etc. There are almost 4 weeks before the cut-off and they need to distribute 2,500 before then. The good news is this is less than 100/day.
To clarify, the government indicated that there are 5,000 FIRST DOSES available, so that would mean 10,000 shots sitting in the freezers.
39,250 having had the first dose brings us to 77% of vaccine-eligible taking the jab. Roy & Alden set a target of 75% and CI have passed it. Not enough now.
New (pro-reopening)Government moved the goal posts to require 45,500 people to be vaccinated before any reopening “can even be discussed”. How can 6,000 people get fully vaccinated with only 5,000 doses remaining? Why can’t we discuss and plan ahead to announce a reopening contingent on vaccinating a realistic % of population? While Caymanians have a national right to decline the vaccine, it would help local herd immunity if tourists and work permits were required to be vaccinated in order to enter the country.
The government news release indicated 5,000 first doses, not total doses. So enough for 5,000 more people.
Whoops. That’s a real difference to the calculations.
there is no plan and never was a plan….
i remember alden saying all we need ed was 90% of over 60’s vaccinated and we could then re-open…..
he was actually 100% correct in terms of reducing the risk to our health service….
however you must realise cayman has no plan or no clue how to come out of its covid bubble….
Yep….that was the goal but they’ve pushed it further and further down the road. Looks like it’ll never happen as there is no real plan in place.
Can Dr Lee please tell us what the PCR test cycle threshold was for the 18 remaining asymptomatic positive results?
Were these people vaccinated or unvaccinated?
These are fair questions that health authorities should answer for the public.
As has been explained many times, the PCR Ct values are not relevant. The test is detecting a positive so people must be assumed to be infectious.
You are an idiot
Not true! a high cycle rate of over 30 cycles in a PCR test will show up inert fragments of Covid SARS viruses or a very low level not a threat. Someone who is infectious and able to possibly spread the virus will be detected at around 20 cycles. Some tests are being allowed to go as high as 50 which is ridiculous.Picking up fragments of dead viruses of no threat whatsoever and giving false positives.
Authorise it for people over 12.
The CDC has approved it for EUA so hopefully won’t be too much longer.
Public Health England wont have this done by June 9th. PHE is aiming for July.
Construction sites. Can you take a mobile vaccine van to construction sites please?
Let it tick.. I won’t be anyone’s Guinea pig.
Combined Darwin and selfishness award.
You aren’t. The guinea pigs were the people who put their hands up for the testing phases last year.
It says alot about our new government that most of them just decided to get vaccinated. Im not buying the too busy BS
there is no re-opening plan….there never was a proper vaccination plan. the dogs in the street could have told you in january therwas no way 80% would be vacinated.
Did you just get here?
This is a constantly-evolving bioscape. Nobody — ANYWHERE — knows the answer to this pandemic, well, *cough* except you and other keyboard warriors.
Plan? Don’t you read and see it evolving all the time same as me? Do you know what the numbers are going to be next month? No? Nobody else does either!!
Here’s the operant question: How many lives are a negligible loss for you in order to open the borders without quarantine? 50? 100? More? Less?
This isn’t mathematical order of operations; there is no formula for leading to vacay freedom, sorry, sucks to be you, stranded without your shopping spree. 🙁
Your self-righteousness is disgusting. There is nothing wrong with expecting the government to have a plan that is contingent on certain conditions. Many countries have done this. Also who are you to judge why this person wants the borders to open? Many people have been hurt financially, need to travel for medical reasons or to see close family members. You are shaming someone without knowing anything about their situation or condition or lives. That seems immoral.
Vaccinated US taking off their masks indoor and outdoors and getting ready to travel, travel, travel. Set your opening date or they will be traveling elsewhere.
Already have been traveling since last summer! All good!
will keep asking:
what if we don’t get to the impossible 80% figure?
what is plan B?
i got vaccinated along time ago but now feel like it was a waste of my time,(where did it get me?)…..what hope of cig getting people to take future vaccines or booster shots?
cig has never said it will fully re-open if the impossible 80% is achieved.
where is the incentive?…where is the a punishment/accountabilty for people who are putting lives at risk through their own ignorance??
10:39pm – Excellent questions. I sure wish CIG would provide some answers!
Set a date, make a plan, share the information, quit beating around the bush. Figure it out and let us move on or if we are not going to move on let us know we are going to remain in this bubble for as long as it takes for Covid to die out in the rest of the world. Lord, I hope that is not the case or we will be in this bubble for a very, very long time.
Yet another poster advertising punishment for the unvaccinated that made his/her democratic right not to take it. I presume you also expect smokers, drinkers and the obese to be punished too for their lack of preventing perfect health? Seems like you also have a level of ignorance. Vaccination is a choice. I chose to take it, but at the same defend those who choose not to and respect their decision.
Feels alot like voting huh?
cayman’s great shame….
but caymanians don’t care….whe was the last time someone in cig resigned for non-performance?
Mr. Panton, please give us some concrete scenarios and potential timelines for a partial or full reopening, to allow at least vaccinated residents and visitors to not quarantine, and permit some normal flights from American, Delta etc to land here.
By June 9th we will be at around 65%, give or take a percentage. So what is the plan for July 1st?
We dont need a 100% commitment, just SOME small indication of a possible plan (or are you paralyzed by fear…remember, you wanted this position, to singularly make this decision on behalf of 60,000 people…so step up to the plate!!)
EVERYONE who got vaccinated should automatically be entered in the prize draw, not just those who came late. Its like rewarding bad behavior. The current criteria cause inequity to all who listened and stepped up before 8th May.
I never thought of that but you make a good point.
It is like giving a serial speeder $50 for not speeding anymore, and nothing to another driver who obeys the laws and never speeds.
Agree. That’s a crappy thing for those who stepped up early to be excluded.
Bad behaviour? Plenty words for a sheep.
Announce tomorrow that vaccine is required for work permit renewal……numbers met in no time! The majority of professionals on work permits were promptly vaccinated but certain sectors of workers (manual labor) have been resistant. Time to apply some pressure! Many of those are front-line workers that interact with the public and therefore could be super spreaders if we end up with cases in the community.
People are so vocal about vaccinated visitors (highly unlikely to transmit) but are letting these high-risk groups get a pass.
you will find it mostly(on a per captia basis) caymanians who have refused the jab
Yes. Work permit holders are required to get blood tests, X-rays etc, to see that they are not going to come here and be a burden on the health care system.
It is fair to require a COVID vaccine to be eligible to work here on the same premise. If not, suggest go back to your home country.
Many countries require proof of non-Covid vaccines (such as yellow fever vaccine) to travel to that country.
Once we partially or fully open up, it is inevitable that Covid will eventually get into the community. Unvaccinated people are at more risk of catching Covid and having a bad outcome. So work permit holders who refuse vaccination and require medical intervention will be a burden on Cayman taxpayers.
Covid hospitalization care is not cheap, especially if have to be in the hospital for an extended period of time.
Exactly. Are we going to keep the borders closed for another year because of people that might leave anyway. People will still have a choice – get vaccinated or go home. Either that or drop the quarantine for vaccinated people. They need to come up with some kind of plan. So far this government has given us nothing and we are running out of time with the vaccines.
It’s not work permit holders who are the hold outs…
Between my group of friends, it’s the religious Caymanians and expats who don’t want to take it. Brainwashed by right-wing lies pushed by their pastors and Qanon chat groups on Signal and Telegram.
Do your friends know you disrespect them behind their back? Incidentally right wing is pro individual responsibility. I think you mean left wing that believes in socialism and nanny states.
We have some locals holding out too but there is definitely a HUGE number of blue-collar work permit holders that are holding out. Our white-collar work permit holders did their part right away!
Thing is, this is home for locals but work permit holders have been granted a privilege of being here. Therefore, just like other items are required in exchange of that privilege, these vaccines should be too!
Can we also insist that work permit holders NOT smoke and maintain a healthy diet when on island? Also, would your mandatory vaccination rule apply to tourists and long-term stay over visitors or are you only singled out a single demographic?
Smoking and an unhealthy diet mainly affects the individual (I suppose you could argue that it raises insurance costs somewhat for everyone). But not getting vaccinated puts the entire community at risk because the unvaccinated are much more likely to spread covid. And the economic devastation of not having a tourist industry at all for possibly years if the border stays closed until all risk is gone is much worse than the rise in insurance payments. All of the categories that you refer to should be required to be vaccinated. There are many countries in which a yellow fever jab is required to enter so why is this any different? You don’t want to be vaccinated for yellow fever, don’t go to that country. Don’t want to get vaccinated for covid, don’t come here.
The yellow fever vaccine has been around for over 80 years, wasn’t required until the 80s, it works whether others have taken it or not, and contains a pathogen of yellow fever…I hope that’s enough reason to explain why this is very very different.
No one is suggesting the vaccines are similar…. But rather there is precedent for requiring vaccinations when necessary to protect the community.
I agree. That’s why I clearly showed an example of what the precedent looked like in past based on the poster’s mention of yellow fever.
Based on that precedent, we have to wait several years and at least FDA approval before considering mandatory inoculations.
The vaccine was approved for use because it is safe and effective. I see no reason that it couldn’t be required for visitors and people on work permits. Unvaccinated people are a risk to the community so why would we want them here if they don’t need to be. If people do not want to be vaccinated, they have the option of returning home.
Now you’re talking! We should insist upon a certain BMI, BP and other measurable variables. We should also insist that they never wear spandex, or cook their food in aluminum. No more TV dinners, and, hey, what about that Coconut Dinner? We better make sure WP holders don’t eat ANY of the native cuisine!! Rundown? Boooo! Salt Beef and Beans? ONLY for the natives. EsPECially if there are spinners involved.
Why you are bashing Expats? Caymanians are worst…
Wussa
I wasn’t bashing expats. It’s NOT all expats! Some of our expats were there the first day eligible! There is definitely a few sectors though where they’re ARE lots of hold-outs.