Dozens of families now in COVID isolation
(CNS): With 38 new community transmissions of COIVD-19 discovered over the weekend, including more students and teachers across several schools, dozens of households are now in home quarantine with parents unable to go to work and siblings unable to go to school. Several classes and year groups at Triple C, John Gray, Clifton Hunter, Cayman Academy, Prospect and a number of pre-schools are now impacted by local transmission, as well as several adults who have become infected. Another 14 travellers also tested positive for the virus this weekend
Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee, confirming the latest figures as of 9am Monday, revealed that there were 113 active cases of SARS-CoV-2, the highest number since the virus arrived in Cayman in March 2020. Of these, 50 people have symptoms but only one person who tested positive on 8 September remains in the hospital being treated for other health issues.
“In view of the fact that infection is fairly widespread, I wish to remind people to please take good care of themselves and their community members by wearing masks in indoor places, keeping distanced, using appropriate cough and sneeze etiquette and practicing appropriate hand hygiene,” Dr Lee said, as the results were released Monday evening confirming the extent of the community spread.
“Those who are clinically vulnerable and the elderly need special attention to this for their own part and those who interact with them. Please follow Public Health’s guidance if you are asked to isolate; this is vital to reduce and slow the spread of infection through our community,” he said, explaining that by slowing the spread it will enable the health services to cope with any serious cases of the virus and treat those who become seriously unwell without overwhelming the hospital and the ICU.
Dr Lee warned that it could now be many months before the virus burns itself out in Cayman or the increase in treatments and vaccinations for children are rolled out, making it less of a concern. But with 90% of over18s already vaccinated, he said Cayman is well protected.
According to the latest figures, 74% of the entire population is fully vaccinated and 78% has had at least one shot. Over 100 people, largely those who are vulnerable and have compromised immune system, have had boosters. Meanwhile, the vaccination clinic has moved from Camana Bay to the Lion’s Centre.
See the vaccine schedule on the HSA website here.
For more information on vaccines contact the HSA Communications team at
communications@hsa.kySee here for more information on securely verifiable vaccination records.
Anyone with flu symptoms is urged to stay at home in the first instance and contact the 24 hour Flu Hotline or your general practitioner to speak to a health professional about those symptoms before visiting the flu or testing clinic.
Flu Hotline: 1-800-534-8600 or 345-947-3077 or 345-925- 6327 or email flu@hsa.ky
Callers will be screened for travel history and advised on what to do next.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
Those who postulate that the current local cases are the result of drug canoes from Jamaica must assume that the drug canoes did not operate when quarantine was 14 days and only just started bringing drugs when quarantine was reduced to 5 days. Wake up dummies, Covid got into our community only after the reduction of quarantine from 14 days to 5 days.
Been here all along bobo.
Right – it came out of hiding when the 14 day quarantine was reduced to 5 days.
It’s the Jamaicans in drug canoes and the Canadians playing dominoes. And the Filipinos with their crazy parties. It’s definitely not Caymanians.
American Airlines has now officially cancelled all flights (MIA, DFW, CLT…) until at least Feb 17, 2022. Initially they scheduled October 15th. After the opening deferral they pushed to December 22nd. Now they have given up until at least Feb 17, 2022.
Might as well stick a fork in it this upcoming season….
Oh no. Cayman can’t live in a bubble. That needs to pop. We need to open up and be like everywhere else and hVe large number of covid cases. The best way is to reduce the inconvenience of 14 days quarantine down to an ineffective 5. Good job
News from Singapore today that is worth noting –
“Singapore’s health ministry reported 3,486 new cases of Covid on Tuesday, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic, while it recorded a further nine deaths.
A recent surge in infections after the relaxation of some restrictions has prompted Singapore to pause further reopening. It also tightened curbs from last week that limited social gatherings to two people and made work from home a default.
More than 80% of the population has been vaccinated against the virus.”
Hopefully our government will take a hint about the effects of removing restrictions that kept us safe in the past.
Today Bermuda is reporting that 26% of their local transmission cases were fully vaccinated! That was much higher than I would have imagined but it clearly shows that although my family is fully vaccinated, we all need to be extra careful in limiting the importation and transmission of this viruz.
https://www.gov.bm/articles/covid-19-update-4-october-2021
I think I missed an announcement from Government, what is the overall plan – are we looking to get back to ‘Covid free’ or are we just trying to reduce the spread, or plan c?
Covid free would suggest another lockdown, extended quarantine etc, reduced spread wouldn’t be what we are doing now, so I guess plan c…now what is plan c?
There was never covid free. Maybe free of testing the general population.
Median 5 days incubation period, 97.5% by day 11.5, nothing magical happens at day 14, just that it is deemed an acceptable risk vs time.
Delta replicates substantially more quickly that the original wild strain.
The incubation period is the same. Replication appears to be increased because of the ability of the Delta variant to escape our immune systems.
Not sure where you got that information but it seems about right. Median incubation of 5 days means that half are longer than 5 days. When we reduced quarantine to 5 days we let vaccinated people who were infected into our community to spread the virus.
Dr. Lee: 90% of over18s already vaccinated
Government: Let’s impose mandates like we’re back in March 2020 and 0% vaccinated
Seriously, what the heck is PACT thinking?
Exactly – it’s a disgrace!
when the entire population is safely in isolation can we open up the border?
When one member of PACT gets infected, and the whole of PACT and their families need to do 14 days of home imprisonment, the rules will then get changed.
Home imprisonment? Aside from work from home challenges you really refer to staying in your house with your family members for a 14 day period as imprisonment? Or maybe its like prison for them to have to be around you for that long? Sad really.
Home imprisonment is being defined as being involuntarily confined by authorities to one’s home.
Why? Because one’s negative tested child with no symptoms was in the vicinity of a positive child, so let’s lock down the entire negative child’s family for two weeks on short notice?
And this can happen multiple times this school year.
You must forget how fun Sunday full day curfew was last year.
You must be advising PACT?
The test and stay protocol is used in the school I teach in. There is no closing of classrooms or the entire school. Please implement it in your schools as it does not interrupt the schools, all children and families trying to work.
I’m looking forward to having to stay at home. Was living my best life when we were locked down.
10.08, Kenneth is working to achieve that with his big party at Pedro for the Port staff, who are essential for keeping our daily supplies flowing .
What a genius.
Tell us more. What’s this about?
This is absolute madness! It is unacceptable to force a 14-day quarantine on ALL families where a student tests positive. For goodness sakes – testing positive does not equal on a ventilator in the hospital. I have four kids and am on constant pins and needles waiting for the call that we’re going to be forced into a quarantine. Those of age in my household are fully vaccinated.
It makes me full of rage to see these types of restrictions and overreactions, while at the same time I am seeing ads for Halloween parties at bars. Are you kidding me???? Is public health going to give everyone attending these events a PCR test before going? Would love to see them roll up and crash these events like they did to that poor fellow on the boat cruise. (I’m being saracastic)
Two weeks quarantine for an entire class is NOT learning to live with COVID. Why has the governemnt not planned ahead. Schools should have lateral flow tests or spit tests available. If a student is positive, use the lateral flow or spit tests on the other students in the class on days 1, 3, 5 and 7. If negative, stay in class. If positive, go home. No quarantine necessary for the rest of the family.
Exactly. Many places in the US and Canada have implemented a “test to stay” strategy like you outlined in your last paragraph, using 15-minute lateral flow tests on students without symptoms. Highly accurate (not quite as high as PCR), but for this surveillance purpose, fine.
Multiple kids are going to test positive over this school year. You cant imprison a family for 14 days, perhaps multiple times a year, each time.
Are HSA/CIG/Corporate stakeholders ordering the containers of rapid antigen tests that could allow us a more immediate, adaptive, less burdensome and disruptive option? We need to adjust and there is now readily available tech to help those that might not have 14 days to burn in limbo. Are there details of those orders for the public?
The choice is simple. Keep quarantine and have schools open with healthy children in those schools, or reduce or eliminate quarantine and have rapid community spread that will ultimately kill people in our community.
Agreed. Bermuda dropped quarantine and has had dozens of deaths and schools closed. May of those that died were fully vaccinated.
Fake news
H-m-m-m-m-m……..Let me think about that for a while.
All those posting dislikes might want to take a look at what has happened in Bermuda following their decision to drop quarantine – similar population, similar vaccination rate, all schools closed, dozens dead 20% of whom are fully vaccinated.
https://www.gov.bm/articles/covid-19-update-4-october-2021
Its simple, no place for fear mongering and misinformation.
What we need to do is to ignore everything that has been learned about viruses, public health and all that other nuisance information that is getting in the way of this virus. So say some posting here.
The place may as well just change its name to “The Quarantine Islands” .
The islands that are a step back into the past before covid. Where one can roam free without a mask and lockdowns. Where covid 19 has been eradicated thanks to a 14 day quarantine that is strictly enforced. You can experience a life as generation x and boomers use to enjoy. Live life as it should be, breathing bracing fresh sea air naturally, without a face mask. Safe that your stay will be a covid free one.
Given that Covid is generally transmitted by aerosol and that at the moment our schools have windows that do not open and less than ideal systems for removing virus particles from re-circulating air, spread in schools is highly probable if one child becomes infected.
Same in offices. It is madness that remote working is not being actively encouraged where practicable.
You are right and the fixes for those problems should be high priorities for government.
Covid in a can? Sounds kinda cool.
Great and accurate descriptor of many schools and other buildings in Cayman. If the government spent money on fixes for that problem rather than Kenny’s ‘non-info’mercial we would be better off.
At least now we know what Kenny’s plan to deal with the traffic is.
This was entirely avoidable. All we had to do was keep the 14 day quarantine so that infected vaccinated people did not bring Covid into our community.
Completely agree. This #$%-up comes from trying to please those who demanded the quarantine protocol for travelers should be relaxed. Hope they are happy now.
No we aren’t happy now. The plan was supposed to be October 15th, and now it is at some distant day in the future. Hope YOU are happy now.
When there are honour-less quarantine cheating dominos tournaments, 5, 7, 14, doesn’t matter. Those people should not have been allowed to travel, and they should now loose travel rights for a suitable number of years, like a DUI. $#%@ed it all up.
And find alternate living for everyone in our tourist industry. And for that matter massively reduce our financial services sector, because we wouldn’t be able to attract staff or compete with other offshore that could travel to meet clients. And quarantine all the boys coming in from Jamaica with the canoes. And ensure all staff that interact with incoming travellers before they have cleared quarantine are also quarantined. Bit apart from that, yeah, would have been a plan.
Too late. Preparing for carnage is all we can do now. We’ll be in a similar position as Bermuda before the end of the month.
Another Zero-COVID policy at all costs advocate….
Clearly a sensible policy advocate unlike the “open the borders and let the dying begin” advocates.
Exactly. . .everyone getting Covid with some people dying was not (is not) a foregone conclusion.
Have you seen Australia and New Zealand? 14 day quarantine in hotels and both now accepting that they can’t keep it out of the population. They bought time for a vaccine but nothing is fool proof.
New Zealand is going to allow fully vaccinated tourists but only with 14 days of mandatory supervised quarantine. Seems sensible and I understand that their tourist facilities are being flooded with reservations.
That is because they didn’t observe quarantine proecedures but let security guards fraternize and people take limos from the airport
There’s no stigma to bringing COVID into the community. We prepared for it with offering vaccinations to those who wanted it. Life goes on.
Says Typhoid Mary.
One type of vaccination that has the most adverse events in history and still under EUA
If you have to isolate, start using the available technology, life doesn’t has to stop.
What if you have to isolate multiple times over the school year — you could end up doing multiple 14-day home sentences?
Parents are just going to opt for online learning if the consequence is multiple 14-day sentences for the entire family.
Online learning is inevitable if quarantine and other efforts to control the virus end. That’s what has happened in Bermuda after they dropped quarantine.
Because every one in Cayman has a desk job that can be done remotely and owns a smart phone, laptop or tablet with access to Wi-fi or disposable income to buy data once a week. Sure. Easy.
My boss thinks it’s all overblown by the media, so it’s business as usual. No one is even wearing masks.
Your boss is a clown and putting peoples lives in danger. Hopefully the government mandates that people in offices can work from home.
Some jobs cannot be done through the use of technology I’m afraid.
Some people unfortunately cannot work remotely or using “modern technology”. It is not fair on these families to place this huge financial burden on them if a couple of couple of other kids have tested positive in their child’s class.
The team that does the testing is exhausted and over-stretched! That unit or department needs people to do the administrative work, i.e. e-mail the results to the negative so they can confidently go back to school or work. It is ridiculous for them to say to a parent, “oh, your student’s result is negative unless we call you.” What is for some reason the call falls through the cracks? We assume most of us are wearing a mask and following the protocol, but regardless, any unit that is exhausted is at risk to make mistakes. People need proper rest.
We didn’t get emailed results at all from last exit, just a phone call.
Give them more credit…they are doing fewer daily tests than they managed at the peak of testing, and they are more proficient at it now.
It is time for this nonsense to stop!
So what happens when A police officer who has a positive child tests positive, will his whole shift at the police station going to be quarantined? What about the fire service, same for them?
The rest of the world is open and living their lives, Norway is completely open without any mandates whatsoever.
Israel on the other hand (with their 4th booster shot!) is having numerous deaths and critical symptoms among their vaccinated and the unvaccinated people are much better off, only mild symptoms.
*CNS: No idea where you got this. Israeli news yesterday: “Key metrics have suggested that Israel’s current wave of coronavirus infections is on the decline, with the unvaccinated accounting for nearly all of the country’s serious infections and deaths, despite being only 15 percent of the country’s vaccine-eligible population.”
I am not here to start an injected vs non-injected debate. COVID is a flu and flu around the world before Covid has killed hundreds of thousands of people, this is fact. Keep up your hygiene, keep up your health with a healthy life style and you will survive this.
*CNS: Fact checking “COVID is a flu”. WHO estimates that seasonal flu causes 290,000-650,000 deaths each year globally. Over the last 18 months there have been 4.8 million covid deaths. Covid is not flu. See Similarities and Differences between Flu and COVID-19
Let us take precautions like wearing masks and pushing hygiene and handwashing, let us open our borders and get on with our lives, let people be able to work and support their families.
We can no longer live in a bubble and maintain this let’s just move on.
That’s nonsense about Israel. What they have is a problem with waning immunity as they only had 3 weeks between vaccine doses which has proved to be a bad decision (Cayman might want to make note of this), so now need boosters. Optimum period between jabs is now believed to be 8 weeks, which has worked out well for the UK.
Dear CNS: a recent independent study was conducted. In this age of censorship that does not tow the party line, relevant (and important info) is suppressed.
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.39.2100822
It is not conspiracy when 10’s of thousands of doctors globally are speaking out, along with scientists, health care workers and those with first hand experience.
Ask yourselves, why a massive censorship. Why is everything ‘fact checked’ (Propanganda), why are doctors who were once respected, scandalized.
CNS: You’re upset about something but I don’t understand what. The link is interesting but a bit out of date and its conclusion is pretty much universally accepted. Things are fact checked because there is a lot of propaganda out there. I believe that expertise should be respected. Let’s start by respecting the public health experts and virologists, also climate scientists while we’re at it.
Love your response CNS!!!
Not all of they deaths were from Covid CNS . The majority were with Covid not from, big big difference ,and the death was caused by other health issues. Some accidents were even recorded as Covid days , because they tested positive in the 28 days before death.
CNS: This is one of the most prolific anti-vax conspiracy bullshit theories, which takes advantage of the fact that people who die with covid often have other underlying conditions – the utterly deplorable ‘they were going to die anyway’ crowd. It came up a lot in the comments last year and I spent time going over excess deaths statistics, especially in the UK. Most experts believe that covid deaths are actually under-reported.
Anyway, here is a fairly comprehensive fact check and explanation as to how right wing anti-vax media helped spread it: Flawed Report Fuels Erroneous Claims About COVID-19 Death Toll
Skip to the end – “A New York Times analysis of CDC mortality data shows that, from March 2020 to February 2021, deaths nationwide were about 21% higher than what would have been expected during that time period.”
Israel’s cases are mostly BREAKTHROUGH cases AFTER being Vaccinated. Research other than the Far Left Democrat, Biden, Fauci, etc. propaganda.
CNS: News report from Israeli newspaper. There’s a nice graph included in the article to make it easy to understand – Serious COVID Cases in Israel at Two-month Low; Further Drop in Key Metrics
Israel’s coronavirus cases continued to wane Monday, with the Health Ministry logging the smallest increase in new severe coronavirus cases in nine weeks. On Monday, Israel hit its lowest number of active serious cases since August 16, with 564 patients in serious condition. Out of these cases, 247 patients are in critical condition and 204 are on ventilators.
Though Israel’s unvaccinated constitute 15 percent of the population, they make up around 75 percent of current serious cases Monday.
Thank you, CNS. Covid has a much higher death rate than the flu. Almost 5 million deaths, and that is WITH all of the masking, vaxxing, distancing, and lockdowns that we have seen the world over. That number would easily be double or more if Covid had just been allowed to rage unchecked.
What happens when a positive case is found in a workplace? Do all the employees and their families have to quarantine for 14 days even if they are vaccinated and test negative? It doesn’t seem like a country can function that way.
Valid question. I would like to know the answer. Feel the sniffles coming on..
Non compliance is the only way forward at this point.
The rules are poorly thought-out. But laws are laws.
Have fun in jail.
Laws are laws? You must be new here.
What a stupid plan! With this isolation of every classmate, the whole damn island soon be stuck at home. Worse yet, this will happen to families over and over as kids at school catch it. This can’t work. Government needs to come better than this.
May as well open the borders to vaxed travellers now.
May as well have opened it 12 months ago.
Translation – let’s let more of the virus in a quickly as possible so that we can have as many as possible sick at the same time. That way the health care system can crash.
These cases only started appearing, after the quarantine was lowered to 5 days. So who do you think might have been the cause? Is the penny dropping ?
We’ve reached the point where vaccinated travelers with negative test within 48 hours put into quarantine are much safer to be around then the public at large in Cayman.
It has become obvious this government does not have and did not have the competence to formulate a strategy to go forward. Relying on Isolation and Hand Sanitizer is very much March 2020 mitigation.
Now is the time to:
– avoid crowded and public events,
– practice social distancing
– eat well and select other healthy practices
– limit travel
– practice isolation
– protect yourself and family
– use the available technology as much as is possible.
You stay home and hide, us rational people will continue to live.
Work on your grammar while you continue to live.
Colloquialisms are not grammatical errors. Someone as smart as you should know that already.
Sorry, but colloquialisms aside, a comma splice is a form of grammatical error.
Until you or a loved one gets sick, and then it’s “stop everything and treat me/them.”
Or, get vaccinated and feel relieved you won’t risk dying from covid.
Clearly the 14 days quarantine was the gold standard. Once that was reduced we had community transmission. We will just have to accept that quick international travel is a thing of the past.
Or more likely the terms and conditions of self isolation were or are not being complied with nor properly monitored.
Just from Cayman (The quick International travel bit).
Which will be available elsewhere , but I agree with you ,Cayman wont be one of them.
I have to travel to run my business, so i went off island in August thinking it would just be for a couple of months, with the team operating remotely from Cayman. Now wondering whether I should move everyone else as well – this cannot go on.
Agreed. Quarantine is a small price to pay to keep our population healthy.
Hell no. I need off this rock for a bit.
Nothing is 100% safe, take Australia and New Zealand, they both have 14 days quarantine in hotels – no home isolating – and are now battling outbreaks.
10.05am Madness, I quite agree. Furthermore does Govt really believe all these households with children will remain locked in their homes for 15 days or more?. We have already seen what one parent got up to and where her husband went on a Saturday night.
7.02am Absolute nonsense – if you have 14 day quarantine at home and most do, that is where the problem with community spread lies. How many of these people have had visitors (and not all t play dominoes).
This quarantining business is not sustainable.
We are opening up, let’s move on with life.
We have an 80% vaccination rate. Let’s open up and live normal lives again…please.
We now know that vaccination wanes at varying magnitudes in everyone. Have you tested your confidence with a antibody titre lab? If you’re under 500 U/mL, you might want to temper your optimism, before the confrontation, or get a 3rd. Just sayin.
Wake up Cayman, COVID is here to stay. Just get vaccinated and live with it. I do it since almost a year in a third world country and it is possible. The whole world moved on. It’s time.
Give us the CHOICE of the VACCINE WE WANT and we all will get VACINATED
No you won’t
Entitled much?
That’s a weak excuse for not getting the jab. Pfizer is a world class vaccine so get it or suffer the consequences!
Isn’t interesting that we have officially community transmission right in the corner of the reopening?
why there is no transparency regarding the number of infected fully vaccinated in the hospital ?
why to put a vaccine as mandatory when it does not stop you from sharing the virus? why are you closing your eyes for natural immunity ?
can you image a cool party with passport proof and booooom! 50/100 infected in the following weeks?
are we supposed to close our eyes and follow the tyranny?
Well that was hard to read. Get vaxxed, it’ll save your life or more importantly someone else’s.
why there is no transparency regarding the number of infected fully vaccinated in the hospital ?
Umm – there is. Its one; who is in there for other, non Covid issues
why to put a vaccine as mandatory when it does not stop you from sharing the virus?
Because it massively reduces the chances of catching and the disease you don’t catch it, you don’t transmit it – and because it massively reduces thec hances of your being hospitalised. How often doe that have to be repeated?
why are you closing your eyes for natural immunity ?
Because its not that effective – 4 million plus dead people who relied on natural immunity. You want to join them?
We’re they all close contact ( within 6 ft of the positive person for more than 15 minutes) or just in the same part of the building?
Before panic sets in remember we only have one person in hospital. We can live with this except for the unvaccinated who can only blame themselves when they end up on a ventilator.
No one is in hospital as a result of covid-19
I am 100% in favour of vaccination but we cannot forget that 20% of those who have died in Bermuda since they dropped quarantine were fully vaccinated.
True, but how many ventilators? How many 02 bottles and replenishment capacity per hour? How many trained technicians over 24hrs? Should an addiction to bad info be a death or serious illness sentence? We need to have compassion even for those who may later be struck with terrible regrets. We’ve seen elsewhere that some in that category, paralyzed with illness and/or pride, don’t make it to the hospital. This is not a movie.
You can contact trace all you want now, but this is here to stay. It’s obviously very prevalent.
Keep up the vaccination drive and we’ll be good.
Keep the vaccination drive and keep quarantine and hopefully it will not kill or disable too many.
“Dr Lee warned that it could now be many months before the virus burns itself out in Cayman”
Wtf? We’re going to wait for the virus to burn itself out again? Have you lost your mind??? Open the borders! We need to live with this. Government had 18 months to prepare and plan for this. Idiots couldn’t organize a piss up in a bar! Why on earth did we all rush to get vaccinated if your plan is to keep our island permanently closed?
Dr. Lee’s statement had nothing to do with the borders opening or not. He was simply stating that with this much spread it will take a while to burn out.
It is never going to completely “burn out” any more than the flu “burned out”. In the future, this will likely now come and go in seasonal waves, just like it will everywhere else in the world from now on.
Seasonal vaccination, plus occasional natural infection (each time priming your immune system further), plus post-infection anti-viral oral pills (such as Merck’s which should be approved this year, and widely available next year), will make this a less fearsome pathogen, still much worse than the flu, but manageable.
The Good Doctor obviously now on the Zero covid strategy that most countries have totally abandoned with sensible guidance. Saying it will be months before the Virus ” burns itself out ” is a total miss-conception. He needs to go now, not in January.
Dr T for CMO!
You think this is Dr Lee’s idea? After listening to his speech about learning to live with it? You think his going in January might be exactly because this is not his idea – spend more time with my family, yeah right.
how many sick that need hospital?…that is the only question.
for under 18’s…covid is same risk as winter flu….do we ever report numbers on winter flu???
time to trust in science and statistics.
Just so you know. Children can die from Covid too.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/10-old-died-covid-teacher-110739615.html
Children can die from many things that are all around us all the time.
“covid is same risk as winter flu” – Nope, it is not. The global medical community is still trying to ascertain the full long-lasting after effects of Covid so no, it is not the same.
Each of us is responsible for keeping the virus at bay. Let us be kind to our neighbours if they are in isolation; they did not choose this. It is them today, it could be us tomorrow…
Thank you. That is the attitude I wish our entire population had.
This is nothing to be concerned of. We need to allow the virus to spread through the population in as controlled a manner as possible. XXXX
CNS: The rest of this comment is posted here.
Translation – We need to let some of our population die and others to develop long term disabling disease for the convenience of others.
Last time I checked that’s how civilization has operated for ever. No one person is greater than the collective.
Dr. Lee, please check out the NHS in the UK’s guidance for school outbreaks, which only require those testing positive to isolate, not their entire household.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-covid-19-operational-guidance
Many parents are in agreement that we can not isolate for 2 weeks every time there are more than one positive case in a school setting.
The current guidelines are unsustainable and will lead to the crippling of our society and devastating our children’s school year and long term mental well being.
We have 90 percent vaccination rate in those above 18 years of age, no reason a vaccinated adult should have to isolate more than 24 hours.
It’s not coming from Dr. Lee any more, that much is clear.
If this policy is maintained, households will likely be required to isolate multiple times over this school year.
Feel sorry for households having to begin isolation on December 15th, ruining the holiday break.
No one in their right mind would send their children to school in December based on current PACT fear led policy.
Unfortunately the incubation period for Sars-CoV-2 is 14 days not 24 hours.
The incubation time for Covid to be detectible on a PCR test is 3 to 5 days.
Is this what The DP means by “we should learn to live with it”. Let’s pray every unvaccinated child survives or has no long term affects.
https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/institutional/insights/market-insights/eye-on-the-market/coronavirus-covid-19-research-compilation/
great compilation of the real-world studies to inform your fears about children
According to the data they will survive unless they have a serious underlying condition.
When the vaccination is approved for the 5 to 12 age group get your child vaccinated. 12 to 17 already approved and available here. You get vaccinations for them for polio, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. California has the right idea; make it part of the mandatory vaccinations to attend school.
Sadly the re-introduction of the virus to our community is most likely due to the reduction of quarantine to 5 days when it was well known that the incubation period is up to 14 days and vaccinated people can still transmit the virus.
There is no evidence for this. It’s just as likely it was from some sort of breach or from an airline or airport staff member coming into contact with an unvaccinated person. Either way we should be learning to live with covid and not trying to get back to zero anyway.
That zero-COVID policy was not sustainable. Having to quarantine for two weeks (plus 1.5 days) each time entering the country was an emergency measure, which was no longer socially acceptable after 19 months, and futile over the long run.
Quarantines for vaccinated will soon be dropped entirely so better get your vax and move on.
That could be a contributing factor. It could also have been a mis-diagnosis of a positive as a negative from the lab. I have noticed that Dr. Lee has not indicated that the lab are still having their positive tests and a random selection of their negative tests verified by CARPHA anymore… why did that stop? I also haven’t seen anything about which variants are being detected anymore. That was big news for a while and now nothing. What changed? Did we every verify our ability to identify the strain with CARPHA or PHE? People forget that what is not said is often more telling that what is said…
9.38pm Allowing home quarantine is the culprit.
So who is going to pay the salaries of all the people that are now required not to attend work? Who is going to stay home with kids that are being required to do remote learning because someone in their class was positive and their parents can’t afford to take time off from work indefinitely? This is unsustainable and is just one mini lockdown after another.
Stipend capital of the world.
It doesn’t have to be stipends, but what is your answer?
Imagine the scenario if over the next two months your (fellow) employee is off work for two weeks starting now because their child’s class is on lock down then after three weeks another two weeks quarantine because of another pair of positive cases in the class. Now let us say that that employee is a cashier in a corner store. They cannot work remotely. Does the employer keep paying them? Or does the employer expect Government to pay them? Or is the employee expected to have 4 weeks of living expenses in their emergency savings? Or is there some other option you prefer?
It almost doesn’t matter what the decided outcome is but society needs to agree who is going to pay for people not working because the current policy will result in people not working. (Especially if the store in my example then has to shut down because two of the other workers tested positive, as if it were a classroom. Now our poor cashier has been out of work for 6 weeks out of 8, and never had COVID themselves.)
What a joke..vaccinated Perents of a child that MAYBE a contact are locked up for 14 days!
In 4 weeks from now over half of the island will be locked up as a complete overreaction.
What happens when these people are needed to keep power on and water or heat care!
Wake up Cayman stand your ground and do not accept being locked up.
You’re right 8:52. Only confirmed cases should be quarantined.
You clearly nothing about infectious disease control.
Makes you wonder…..
Time to let it go. It’s here to stay
How many of those who got vaccinated here have already left the island? So, the percentage is not accurate.
Neither is the “population”.
It was all a nonsense. They have no idea how many people are here, how many people are unvaccinated etc. All they now is that the majority of the unvaccinated are their voters.
We need to get these healthy, asymptomatic, vaccinated family members who have tested negative out of the mandatory isolation a lot faster than 14 days.
Another bad weekend in Bermuda. 7 more deaths. 50 deaths in 5 weeks. Thousands in isolation ( infected plus family household). Hospitals are still at capacity ( doctors and nurses exhausted). Started off slow then just exploded. Delta can spread quickly on a small island.
“Covid-19: seven more deaths, 83 new infections”
https://www.royalgazette.com/health/news/article/20211004/covid-19-seven-more-deaths-83-new-infections/
If you fear that much, try this:
– eat healthy
– isolate of can
– use available technology
– practice meditation
– just live and let others worry for themselves.
just live and let others worry for themselves.
Wow, could you be any more selfish?
All you dislikers may not like it, but these are the facts. By not taking ALL the precautions we can we are inviting the same outcome. And if this happens. . . watch the effect on the economy. You cannot have a livelihood if you don’t have a life.
Get vaccinated
Agreed. If they had not dropped quarantine none of that would have happened in Bermuda.
And meanwhile in TCI they have 47 active cases (less than half of what Cayman has) with only one person in hospital. They have had 6 fatalities over the last 6 months. Their borders have been open without quarantine for over 14 months. Don’t know why Bermuda is such a shit show and TCI is so much better.
BS on steroids – TCI is averaging 1 death per week with a population half our size and a more disbursed population. Take a look at the numbers before you post misleading crap.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/turks-and-caicos-islands/
Density of population and number of office workers.
According to the statistics Bermuda has a fatality rate of about 1.5%, yet in Cayman we have had over 900 cases so far and basically 0 fatalities (no I’m not counting the two people who were already almost completely out the door when they died with covid vs. from covid). If we’re supposed to say that Bermuda and Cayman are essentially the same we would have had about 14 fatalities so far.
So why in the UK are hospitalisations and deaths at a tiny fraction of what they were at the peak? Because we pursued a policy of vaccination at 8 – 12 weeks intervals (now proven to be the most effective strategy) and never fully locked down, meaning that we have very high levels of immunity throughout the population and will come out of this much earlier than nations which have been fully locked down for months on end. New Zealand being another case in point.
Article is missing a key stat: how many of the hospitalized persons are fully vaccinated.
Okay this is silly and needs to stop. The Delta is here, and here to stay. It s more than twice as infectious as the alpha and 4x mote infectious than the original 2020 strain. So folks choose. Get the vax or get the virus. Lot better outcome for the vax. But hey, it is your choice.
Actually it’s a better outcome if you have natural immunity. FACT. And no, most won’t die if you catch Delta, please rein in your fear. Some may get poorly, recover and then have superior antibodies to anything this vaccine can give. Especially children.
Fully vaxxed and arrive by plane = 7 days. Fully vaxxed and find out your childs friend at school is positive = 14 days. Like masks, this isolation nonsense will never end. In meantime, if you have kids under 12, prepare to isolate, multiple times until this government figures out that this policy isn’t going to work either. It’s here and we’ve done all we can to prepare.
Governments policies on Covid are laughable!!!! Most are contradictory and the rest are just straight up dumb.
@7:245 good point. It makes no sense to isolate fully vaxxed families for 14 days if their child’s friend at school has covid but isolate fully vaxxed arrivals by plane for 7 days. This logic should translate to covid testing everyone on each flight, holding everyone until all covid testing results are received then quarantining the entire flight full of people for 14 days if one person onboard tests positive. Not that I think this is a good idea, but if we are going to force all these families to isolate/quarantine because 2 kids in a class test positive then we might as well be consistent across the board.
And one more issue I have is Dr. Lee’s statement that “it could now be many months before the virus burns itself out in Cayman.” This is very concerning. Are we seriously going to wait for Covid to burn itself out? Is the focus to get back to zero covid status? If so the only path is to lockdown, close the border completely, go back to remote learning, allow only essential businesses to be open….we’ve been there done that, do we really want that life again?
COVID IS NOT GOING AWAY. Dealing with it and living WITH it in our community is the only logical choice.
Hard to tell if I am happy or sad. The unvaccinated are getting sick, the vaccinated are back in isolation due to… Any answer will be vilified! Cayman is a country of contradictions.
No one is “sick”
So insane no one is on a ventilator. Congrats to all who got vaccinated to protect us.
Not insane, it’s science.
Mario Rankin science i.e. from Youtube or back of a Cheerios box?
Hand on, are you saying we’ve got to wait until someone is fighting for their life on a ventilator before we take all reasonable steps, including isolation, to stop the spread?
Hand on!
There’s the “g” you are so desperately missing, pedant.
That’s not pedantry. That’s merely pointing out that you’re too idle to check your posts before letting your fat finger hit Send.