Just 61 people added to vaccine tally
(CNS): The needle on the COVID-19 national vaccination rate remained stuck Friday, when just 61 people were added to the tally of those who have had at least one dose and only 33 people rolled up their sleeve for a second dose over the last day. Government is due to lift travel restrictions in less than a week, though quarantine requirements will remain in place until 14 October. From that date, vaccinated travellers and visitors will no longer be required to isolate pushing up the risk of community transmission in Cayman for the first time in more than a year since the virus was last circulating here.
With just 70% of the country’s population currently fully vaccinated, this is well short of the 80% national target and almost certainly insufficient to achieve the level of herd immunity that the government wants to achieve to protect people here who cannot be vaccinated, such as children under 12 and those who are vulnerable to the virus.
There was one case of COVID-19 among Friday’s test results and there are currently 16 active cases of the virus among 833 people in isolation, five of whom are suffering symptoms.
Despite our requests, CNS has still not received a breakdown of the positive test results over the last few months detailing how many are and are not fully vaccinated.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
It’s clear there will always be a portion of our community who would rather get info from Facebook than from actual scientists and doctors. Just let covid do what it does to them.
CDC in the U S are warning their people against travelling to Jamaica because of the high numbers of covid. Why Cayman Government don’t do the same and warn its people not to travel to Jamaica at this time ?
Thinking ahead to when the government lets the virus in mid October, do we have enough Oxygen tanks on island for everyone that is going to get sick or is this something that those at increased risk should be buying now just as we buy hurricane supplies when there is a risk of a hurricane hitting us?
Has been asked a million times…
ARE HOSPITALS READY?
STAFF IS TRAINED? ENOUGH OXYGEN SUPPLY? ENOUGH EXPERIENCED respiratory therapists?
Enough anesthesiologists experienced in mechanical ventilation?
What? 👂I can’t hear the answers!
NY Times data on Covid deaths in the US.
Note that hospitalisations have increased 11% and deaths have increased 55% in the last 2 weeks. Sounds like the perfect time to invite these folks to visit Cayman.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
What happened to the legislation Wayne promised since May to make vaccination mandatory for new/renewal work permits?
What happened to enforcement of his code of conduct?
duh – legal obstacles – as much as many of you want totalitarian policies to tell you how to live, constitutional law does not just allow for government to mandate anything they want.
The refusal to mandate it for expatriate government workers (including front line workers) while trying to force it on private sector workers, is irrational and therefore unlawful. If government is unwilling to take its own medicine, it can hardly force it on anyone else.
Ive had both vaccinations and I am certainly in no way an anti-vaxxer, however, neither am I a pin cushion. I won’t be taking a 3rd of 4th shot of anything. These extra jabs aren’t to protect everyone else as has been well documneted, they are for my protection. Well, sorry but I feel protected enough and I’ll make any future decision on what goes in my arm. The purpose of the vaccinations on Cayman were to provide protection from serious illness in order to get the place open again. That is now happening. People have had the opportunity to get vaccinated and a sizeable % havent bothered. I’ll take my chances with any variant.
Up to you — it is meant to help you.
Billions of people take the flu vaccine each year. I don’t take the flu vaccine because I am worried about serious illness; I take it because I want to limit the effect of the flu on my body.
💥Breaking News
CORONAVIRUS
Sunday Florida COVID-19 update: Decrease continues in hospitalizations and ICU patients
Florida is averaging more than 100 deaths per day from Covid. Hardly grounds for celebration unless you are a mortician.
Nobody is celebrating. Today’s FL headline.
So NOW you trust the news…. When it suits you…. With a story you can get behind…. Got it.
Let’s all remember that ONLY verifiable vaccinated individuals are exempt from quarantine whenever best decided to open the borders. If vaccinated but can’t be verified then 10 days quarantine and 14 days for unvaccinated. Those in quarantine have to test NEGATIVE before they can exit quarantine. So IF there is ANY community transmission then it’s factual to say it’s the vaccinated that would be the cause of that. We now know for a fact that vaccinated individuals can catch & spread the disease hence the boosters approach.
Given the knowledge that vaccinated people can catch and spread Covid it would be insane to end quarantine at this time.
There’s actually absolutely no rational justification for having different levels of quarantine based on vaccination. Everyone from the CDC to leading UK scientific advisors, Canadian, etc, etc have clearly stated that vaccinated persons catch and transmit the virus. Just as unvaccinated do.
If anything, vaccinated should quarantine longer as they can ‘mask’ (pun intended) the virus symptoms far longer than non-vaccinated.
There is also of course now growing realization that the current vaccines don’t help against the recent variants as they were developed targetting the original identified strains.
It’s all a bit of a mess really. Either way, wondering where the HRC or the Civil Rights lawyers are when their government are openly discriminating against their own people based on wholly unjustifiable rationale (vax’d/unvax/d).
Take a statistics course – then you might understand. People can occasionally be struck by vehicles while sitting in their living rooms. That does not mean that people in their living rooms are at the same risk as those running back and forth across a highway during rush hour.
You are being a little simplistic – look at the risk profile. Sure, if a vaccinated person is infected they are as contagious as an unvaccinated and infected person. But they are7 to 8 times less likely to be infected. So both the risk of any one person who is allowed to skip quarantine being a risk to the community is way less, and the number of infected people for any given number of people allowed to skip quarantine is way less.
An analogy: sober people can still have driving accidents. But if you breathalyse everyone before driving and only allow the sober to drive, you have way less accidents. Not allowing people to drive at all of course results in even fewer accidents, but there is a social rade off.
That’s what government is doing – a risk based approach that will reduce but not eliminate the incidence of community transmission, as a trade off for the positive impact on the economy. If you are not in the tourism sector or don’t need to travel for business you probably think the risk reward is not sufficient, but that’s your assessment not theirs. And vaccination massively reduces the chances of death or hospitalisation, but that’s not a government choice – they cant compel eligible people to protect themselves.
Teach those who are willing to learn rather than argue with those who aren’t.
There is a lot to be learned about human nature regarding their approach to COVID.
Just wait till they have to pay to park
Soon come at the hospital too.
Everyone has had their chance…get on with opening the border Panton. And after a few of the nutjob anti-vaxxers die please do not go putting us into lockdown.
You obviously do not know the difference between ‘anti-vaxxer’ and vaccine hesitant. We will go into lockdown either way.
Wow…you wanna talk about nutjobs! We’re in a fragile point in history and you wish death upon your human population! Turn your tv of off and never believe your government (especially the pact govt)… just sayin boo
Any government for that matter
Hopefully they put you in northward for wishing death upon humans.
No one is wishing for anyone to die…you Chicken Littles need to give your head a shake. We do, however, have to move on. The virus and it’s mutations aren’t going away, we can’t live like Bubble Boy forever. The UK is doing just fine and they have their borders a lot more open than we do.
Go get vaccinated!
Between 500 and 1000 are dying from Covid week in the UK. Given the difference in populations that would mean about 1 death ever 7 – 14 days here. That may be fine for you but not the vast majority of Caymanians.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
Please tell us how you know they are not going away? A scientific explanation please.
💥Breaking News
Israel is planning to administer FOURTH Covid shot which could be adjusted to fight new variants as country battles wave of infections despite hugely successful(🤔)vaccine roll-out.
At this point the most logical thing would be just to have everybody walking around with an IV drip of the vaccine. You know the old saying “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results?” The only thing that is happening is they are doing something unprecedented with people’s bodies.
Better than dying if Covid
That is not quite what they have said. Theie COVID leader said people can eventually expect a fourth shot down the road. This will likely be an annual jab.
I’ve had 10 flu jabs in the last ten years. Not a big deal. 15 mins of my time each year.
The flu shot is not an mRNA. Not a big deal? Nobody knows what the long term effects are yet alone putting more of this in your body
YES THE SCIENTISTS KNOW. You, not so much.
I can’t wait for the fifth wave. When all those with 4 shots are blaming everything on the ones with only 3.
Lol I can’t wait
The real question for PACT is probably – “If we open the borders when there is no economic necessity to do so, and as a result Caymanians die or end up with long Covid or children’s educations are ruined, will their family and friends remember when the next elections occur?”
Now it’s no need ? But the stipend recipients are lazy and I t want to work ?
So let’s stay closed forever?
No. Let tourists in, but through quarantine. Right now none are allowed. Lots of long term visitors would come in through quarantine if we allowed them.
Not forever – just until the places tourists come from get their acts together.
The alternative to opening in October while Delta is raging over the planet is NOT to never open. It is to defer opening until it is safe to do so without Caymanians and other residents dying and or contracting long Covid.
There you go being sensible again. You really should know better.
Unless government wants to clarify what we will do when the under 12’s start getting hospitalized than we shouldn’t move forward with anything but allowing vaccinated people to come freely and with a pcr test on day 3 of quarantine.
We need to maintain quarantine for at least a week as vaccinated people can still arrive with and spread Covid into the community including our children.
Yes. But with testing in the middle
That is the Bermuda model—— with no quarantine for vaxxed but arrival test, day 4 and 10 test. Moderate spread right now in Bermuda. 7 currently in hospital, one on a vent.
School starts this week in Bermuda with masks.
You forgot to mention 34 dead in Bermuda, and many people now suffering long Covid.
Things are not so great in Bermuda. Read the comments on their news sites.
Parents and Grandparents – there is a helpful article on the incidence and course of long-Covid in children here:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/parents-of-kids-with-long-covid-warn-that-children-can-develop-severe-symptoms-1.6156624
The associated study in the Lancet:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00198-X/fulltext
Their conclusion: relax.
“Our data confirm that COVID-19 in UK school-aged children is usually of short duration and low symptom burden. Some children do have longer illness duration, and our findings validate their experiences; however, most of these children usually recover with time. Our findings emphasise that appropriate resources will be necessary for any child with prolonged illness, whether due to COVID-19 or other illnesses. Our study provides crucial data to inform discussions about the effect and implications of the pandemic on health-care resource allocation.”
The only way the numbers will increase is if PACT does what sensible governments are doing which is bring in a domestic vaccine passport scheme for bars and similar venues.
With boosters every 5 months to keep passports valid until people have more aluminum than blood in their veins? Great idea.
There is no aluminum in the Pfizer COVID vaccine. Hope that wasnt the reason you didnt get jabbed.
PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is administered into the muscle in two doses, three weeks apart (here ).
A fact sheet on the FDA’s website here discloses the ingredients in the vaccine. It includes mRNA, lipids, potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate and sucrose.
It does not list human male aborted fetus cells, triton X-100, thimerosal, or aluminum in its ingredients.
What happened to Kenny’s plan? Has it been implemented with no positive effect??
Keep quarantine and only allow fully vaccinated people to cross our borders.
We have enjoyed a covid free state with little or no restrictions, the economy has not crashed and tourism is not a pillar of our economy. Why throw this all away? I am old enough to remember when tourists were few and we did just fine without them.
Totally agree – thank you.
But what about the people that need to freely go on holiday and visit family abroad. They are just as important to the cayman economy as the caymanians with family here and should be treated equally
Fine. Go. Just quarantine when you get back.
Civil service were not being paid with a loan in your youth. Cayman Islands were not in deep in debt in your youth. It did not take 100 million dollars a year to keep your government fed in your youth. You had a functional economy in your youth. When the economy crashes here many things will go back to how it was in your youth like being hungry all the time. I am not sure that Caymanians will survive that unless the UK takes them in. Living on borrowed time to be Covid free for a year or more may have cost Caymanians the ability to self rule. Dying is a sure thing. Living in poverty is poor planning.
Why would thousands come to experience quarantine on a holiday? Sure, they may enjoy a mask less expert, but then they have that in the States right now where mask wearing is optional, and without having to spend 2 weeks locked in a hotel room.
Because they want to. They are lining up. We have kept them away for 18 months. They want to rent apartments by the month and enjoy a fully open society.
You understand that if there is local Covid spread we will fully lock down. How do you think tourists will enjoy that?
Hahaha I bet there’s more people who want to leave
9:34 No one, NO ONE, is lining up to come stay in quarantine!!
Most of the world is living in a “fully open society” contrary to what Cayman government has you believing! We are traveling and have been for over a year. People will come back to Cayman once there is no quarantine but until then, we go elsewhere.
I’m fully vaccinated and have been for several months so I will not spend money going to a destination to sit in quarantine.
I’ve taken four trips in 2021 already with a couple more to go. Hoping Cayman will be one of those but if not, I’ll wait until full opening in 2022.
Keep traveling. Enjoy new destinations. We will be here when things get safer, and for now will enjoy our bubble.
Yup. Have fun – we have been living fear free and happy for over a year and want to keep it that way….
Quarantine has to go!!!
You are an idiot.
Quarantine has to stay. The types of people who can come, and the number of flights, both need to increase, but WITH a quarantine. We should be starting with long term visitors. Thousands will come, and stay. Short term visitors are simply not worth the risk at this stage.
AMEN!!!
Why would anyone travel to some place with a quarantine when they can go to most places around the globe that don’t have a quarantine?
Cayman is expensive, the beach is no longer that great, and no night life. Crime is on the rise. Close to 700 cases of Covid.
Can travel to many places that have beautiful beaches, warm in winter, low Covid, no quarantine, less expensive, and open and want tourists!
Not sure where has less Covid than Cayman. Those “close to 700 cases” were incoming quarantined persons, not out in public. We are Covid free…
What a dunderhead
I just wish we knew what the next step plan is when community transmission happens.
It’s gonna happen:
Do we just accept it?
Reduce gatherings and limit access to stores and restaurants?
Close the schools?
Shut everything down again?
For me, anything beyond limiting access to stores and businesses is too restrictive. We are better off not opening until other countries have also achieved the 80% rate.
solution is what walkers and dart corporations have told employees. unvaxxed staff must wear masks and provided weekly negative tests at there own expense.
Hopefully every other employer will do the same. While not sufficient by itself, that initiative is very welcome. Those companies are to be congratulated for taking that intelligent step in the right direction.
Mainly the construction sector needs to step up. Same idiots who drive like maniacs are the unvaxxed.
When it becomes apparent that vaccinated people 6 months post-vaccine transmit delta almost as easily as unvaccinated people. All of these segregationist rules will become harder to justify.
That said it should be obvious to most people that getting vaccinated leads to better outcomes, lower chance of hospitalisation and death but unfortunately some people can’t see this logic.
But it’s going to be masks for all I’m afraid.
It is well known vaccinated people can spread the virus. They should ALL wear masks. And in case you missed it the new variants are putting vaccinated people in hospital.
They should be sticking their swabs up the vaccinated to unless there are weekly antibody tests at their expense.
Because the unmasked vaccinated can’t spread it?
Move on with things like the rest of the world, especially as it is now well established that the vaccine only slows transmission but does not block it. This is now an endemic virus globally and will circulate continuously, likely providing seasonal annual peaks, most likely in winter.
Move on with things like those intelligent countries that have implemented domestic vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination for all public facing front line employees.
12:58 Community transmission in a community with such an amazingly high rate of vaccination will not be a crisis. Vaccinated persons can still contract it but it is typically very mild for them. Yes, speaking from personal experience and from seeing it around me.
The unvaccinated are at higher risk of being ill but even that is not a given. Most persons, even unvaccinated, do not get gravely ill just because they test positive. However, it’s WAY more likely to be ill if unvaccinated vs vaccinated. Those that have chosen to remain unvaccinated have chosen to accept that risk.
No need to panic because under 12 can’t be vaccinated. Healthy children are not at high risk. Besides, the UK isn’t even moving forward with plans to vaccinate that age group because of how low risk they are. We’ve had hundreds of kids in our schools test positive this year but not one has even needed medical attention and certainly not hospitalization.
Cayman has had 700ish cases. Other than the two deaths that were both already gravely ill with other issues when they caught Covid, everyone has been fine! If Covid was the automatic killing machine that Cayman Government portrays it, shouldn’t a few more of those positive cases have died or been on ventilators or made the news? The truth is that you are in panic mode and believe that just testing positive is a death sentence. Far from true!!!
Get vaccinated and stop panicking!
Well said! Probably the best post I’ve seen regarding Covid apart from the “get vaccinated” at the end. When it stops being a choice then we are living in a fascist state.
Mass Panic organized by mainstream media and believed by inept governments the world over.
More people are dying from the common flu than are from Covid.
What I really want to see on any news source everyday is. ……”Number of people who died today from Covid with NO UNDERLYING CONDITIONS is……”
Open the borders
Yes. Let’s open. You are right. This virus doesn’t mutate at all. The results will be the same here. It could never mutate to become even more deadly to get around out defenses – and they are very weak. Working, but weak. Could soon see vaccinated just as sick. So let’s become the Petri dish (you studied science, right) – let’s become the experiment. Let’s become the mixing bowl to create a stronger variant. I have already m]named it…. Save you some trouble… it is the KY variant – because it SLIPS RIGHT IN WITHOUT YOU KNOWING ITS THERE….
“Let’s become the experiment…”
Pay attention, that started back in January when the first jabs of the emergency vaccines were coming off the conveyor belts.
Pfizer recently had their ‘emergency vaccine’, approved by the FDA.
If you had looked at the CDC’s own website (cdc.gov) 2 weeks ago, the Pfizer ‘vaccine’ didnt quite meet the CDC basic standard.
Vaccine : A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.
The Pfizer vaccine didn’t quite makes the grade.
Look at the same CDC site today and this is what it says:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm
Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune
response against diseases.
That fits right in with what the Pfizer emergency vaccine does.
What happened to “protecting” and “immunity”.
Percent vaccinated should have stalled-out in high-90s% a long time ago. Yet, we have 30% of Cayman that still don’t think they risk the variants of concern taking them down, and/or scarring them a variety of well-publicised lifelong health problems. There’s clearly some lingering messaging problems. We need a Territorial PACT-Public Health address briefing with Dr Lee that explains to these folks that there is now full FDA approval, and billions served. Those 30% need first doses in their arms in the next 2 weeks, or there could be grave consequences and headlines for Cayman. We don’t want the freezer trucks of bodies here.
Please submit or post the report of the eventual outcome of the mRNA vaccination six years from now.
Else, if the J&J could be available here, myself, mine and several others would step up. Many of us are completely comfortable with the J&J, as it is based upon a genetically modified adenovirus — much like the seasonal flu jab — to carry the gene for making spike proteins of the novel coronavirus.
True. Or if they would bring in the Sinopharm vaccine, me and mine would be inclined to take that as it is made the traditional way. We are not taking anything MRNA.
Bermuda’s experience. 125 new cases. We can expect similar. And schools are just starting (kids and staff required to be masked).
https://www.royalgazette.com/health/news/article/20210903/covid-cases-surge-seven-in-hospital-one-in-icu/
And 34 dead last time I checked.
As well as hundreds of cases of long Covid which has left people unable to work or go to school.
Bermuda’s cases came when they were open before vaccination.
Sigh. This is truly a quandary. Now there is that new variant to consider – vaxxed or not, we are at risk. I realize that yes, we need to kick start tourism, but I pose the scenario that we could do so with a smaller number of tourists so that, at least, contact tracing can be done relatively easily.
That’s a great idea. Lets lock ourselves off from the rest of the world and get continually booster shots for a virus we’ll never meet.
Genius!
Take away the sarcasm and I totally agree with your suggestion.
The last six thousand or so people to get the vaccine shot will be the toughest to persuade. If Government really wants to reach 80% then they need to give a cash incentive or 2nd pension fund withdrawal to get the vaccine shot. Money talks
You would also think the fear of illness/death or simply protecting your family and neighbors would be incentive enough. It’s sad people are bribed to do what is right for all rather just “right” for me. As we are well past 50% vaccinated, it is time to open up and face the new world. Otherwise, this becomes a “Boy in the Bubble” story.
We shouldn’t have to bribe lame ducks. Covid will take care of them for us.
Covid could take care of you too. You can still catch it, transmit it and die from it, so I wouldn’t be so quick to call illness down on people because it could be you
But because I’m vaccinated and healthy I’ll survive. Can’t say the same about you.
Lol. Ok.
You neglected to factor in karma.
I would lay off on the arrogant slagging of the health status of others if I were you.
Do you have to post a comment on 2nd pension withdrawal on every COVID story?
I would love to meet you in real life. You’re probably the only person who thinks that this would make a difference. But you want that money out of your pension so badly you make this suggestion constantly despite the fact that it’s obvious that it’s never going to happen and seems to be unpopular with everyone.
Agree. Give it a rest. He is worse than the “fix the dump” guy. While I agree with both sentiments, to interject them in every remotely applicable conversation is an irritant at best.
We need to know if any of these new positives have the Delta mutation.
Seemingly they do
Vaccinated and dead. Heather was sent home from the hospital without treatment. She was only admitted when it was too late. This scenario of no early intervention has played out thousands of times with deadly consequences. Our health system needs a plan for early and agressive intervention. Do we have one?
Or do we repeat the senseless mistakes made by others?
https://www.koin.com/news/health/coronavirus/fiancee-on-ecmo-wait-list-dies-of-covid/
Has been asked many times….silence in response
She probably had J&J vaccine. There were a couple cases in my state of fully vaccinated persons dying and all were J&J.
Open the borders. Everyone who gives a s—- is vaccinated.
Open the borders. Get rid of quarantine or no one is coming.
And yet I am personally dealing with tens of people who will come, through quarantine, as soon as they are allowed.
That is the way in which they should come, if they love these islands and their people.
We don’t give a shit if they don’t come. We need to have measures in place to protect our community, including quarantine.
Who gives a shit? I’ve loved not having those leeches swarming our shores.
It’s been 1000 times better without them.
Cayman kind is such a joke of a slogan.
So then keeping quarantine is essential then.
Opening the borders means we are accepting community spread of COVID. What is PACT’s plan when this happens? HSA is not equipped to handle any spike of cases so does that mean lockdown? If that’s where we’re heading, then why are we reopening???
In today’s news:
Fully vaccinated Oscar De La Hoya, 48, is hospitalized with COVID and pulls out of his comeback fight against Vitor Belfort
COVID probably saved his life
It’s nice that he did not have to be admitted to ICU because he’s vaccinated. Also, he’d prob be dead if he hadn’t been vaxxed.
Zzzz, conveniently concocted population figure, nothing more.
Do not open the borders. Keep quarantine and make the unvaccinated pay for it. Thousands will come anyway, and we will all be safe.
You are an idiot.
Thousands will NOT come with mandatory isolation. They will continue to go to countries and Islands that have been open for over a year now.
We are the last of the Caribbean to open and it will take years to get our tourism back IF we can at all!
We don’t want thousands of infected tourists. The only tourists that should be welcomed are those that are verifiably vaccinated who then do a minimum of a week quarantine.
Yeah, cuz Covid only comes w/ tourists and not w/ the residents who are traveling in and out daily.
Cayman- 670 cases of Covid ( border closed currently to tourists)
That’s actually a great idea. If you are unvaccinated but scan medically take it, pay a stipend for those who did their duty
It’s interesting that very few choose combat Covid through good health. The last 18 months would have been the perfect time for government to promote healthier lifestyles. Unfortunately, the lines at KFC tell a different story. Liquor sales are booming. We just don’t seem to be an island that can take responsibility for ourselves. It being so much easier to blame anyone and anything for our ills.
Idiot!
Or, open the borders. Those that had their chance but refused can sort themselves out.
You think vaccination is a fail safe silver bullet, don’t you? May I suggest you speak with a doctor.
Open the borders to vaccinated persons. The unvaccinated have had more than enough time to step up. Sep 9 and Oct 14 are coming!
When will you “fling the borders open” people understand that government will respond to COVID in the community. I’ve been fully vaccinated since the end of March but I don’t have the appetite for closed schools and lockdown again, therefore, opening the borders without knowing government’s plan to deal with community spread seems pretty stupid.