COVID plans are working, says premier
(CNS): Seeking to calm fears and reassure an anxious population, Premier Wayne Panton delivered a message to the country at the weekend in which he said that this increase in cases of COVID-19 throughout all three Cayman Islands was concerning but it is also manageable because the “critical preparedness and response plans” were working.
Panton said the high vaccination rate and the responsible approach many people have to safety protocols were preventing large numbers of people from becoming ill. He said that the increase in transmission was expected and with more testing the positive, cases will increase.
“Despite the growing number of cases of COVID-19 in the Cayman Islands, we are not seeing mass hospitalisations. We are not seeing several cases of severe disease. We don’t have our intensive care units crowded with sick people requiring ventilators,” Panton said. “These are the key indicators for us to watch carefully.”
The roll out of the National Policy on the use of Later Flow Tests was the evolution of government’s strategy for detecting and managing COVID-19 in the community, he added.
Despite commending the community for adhering to COVID health and safety guidelines, he urged people to do more to limit transmission because many of the cases over the last week or so have been traced back to social events, restaurants, bars, clubs and workplaces.
“In most of these cases, it comes down to some real truths that are worth calling out,” he said. “We have all seen people not acting responsibly, ignoring the health and safety guidelines that are in place to help manage the rate of transmission. Whether this is a blatant disregard of these known safety measures or circumstantial, it has never been more important for each of us to be vigilant and proactive in doing our part to prevent further spread of the illness.
“When you see your friends and family out engaging in unsafe practices, like not socially distancing in crowded locations, choosing not to wear masks in public spaces or generally disregarding the health and safety protocols we put in place to keep us all safe, I implore you to speak up and say something; have that conversation with them. And if you are contacted by Public Health, please follow all instructions and isolate immediately,” the premier added.
During the message he made it clear that Cayman now had to focus on living with the virus and said that all the rumours of a national lockdown were false, stressing that despite the current positivity rate, the border opening date, which is now just three weeks away, was firm.
“Let me state unequivocally, we are still committed to reopening on November 20th,” Panton said, adding that there had been much progress in the implementation of the critical preparedness plans. “As we reopen we will continue to implement all necessary safety measures to ensure that our residents and our visitors are able to enjoy the unique way of life here in the Cayman Islands in the healthiest and safest way possible.”
In the meantime, he said, government was establishing guidance for those areas of the community that will be most impacted by disruptions from COVID-19, starting with early childhood care and education (ECCE) centres and schools to address testing using the rapid home kits. This, he said, will limit the number of individuals that need to be isolated to only the positives instead of entire classes and their families.
There are only four positive patients currently in hospital, so the predominant negative impact the community spread is having is on the huge number of people isolating for considerable periods, which has a knock-on effect on the workplace and significant staff shortages as well as closures for deep cleaning following outbreaks among employees. The long-awaited policy surrounding rapid testing will narrow the requirement for isolation.
However, the problem now is a shortage of the kits. This appears to have been compounded by delays in ordering through the official regional distributor, as the Health Services Authority ordered its first batch of just 20,000 kits from the UK.
Private sector vendors have also been sourcing tests on the open global market because of the official distributor’s decision to wait on government’s order before organising any shipments to the Cayman Islands. The official distributor in Cayman told CNS on Monday that supply issue should be rectified later this week and the cost of the tests is expected to come down.
Meanwhile, with an estimated 2,000 people in isolation as a result of being either positive or a close contact of a positive person, Panton said that they were “not alone” and those in need of help could contact the proper channels to access available services.
See Panton’s message below:
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.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
The Plan is working? Really Wayne?
What plan?
We have seen no plan. Rather than pro-active leaders we have seen the reactive after the fact scrambling reminiscent of the buffoon stars of the Keystone Cops movies.
Stay calm when I’m loosing revenue by this protocol of closing and reopening? Is this the plan to permanently place small businesses out of business? C&C this plan isn’t working.
It’s a perfect plan. Almost a week now without any cases of covid reported. Well done Sabrina!
Lol.
01 @ 7:53pm – “reported” being the active (rather, inactive) word.
Who will service these expected tourists when they arrive? Has the likes of Marc, Michael, Markus, Mike and the Master thought this whole thing through?
On the current infection/isolation trajectory, do we expect to replace infected workers with individuals brought in by emergency airlift from neighbouring countries? Perhaps we will just leave them to work and infect the tourists?
It will come to some combination of these scenarios if infections and isolations continue apace.
So the premier makes a video on Friday before he leaves, and then the social media expert says, take of your jacket, and say its Monday, say the same stuff and we can release another video… Just make sure you don’t tell anyone any useful information. No one will realise you are away.
20 months into a global pandemic. No one has died. I think I would agree the plan is working.
Working for the wealthy and the landlords excellently
> 5 million people dead and tens of millions forever injured requiring lifetime assistance.
You do realise that for a plan to work you actually have to have one?
If the plan is working why do we have over 2000 in isolation, many just because they are a contact of a positive, but tested negative.
Why have we run out of test kits? Was that part of the plan?
Port disruption?
Supermarket shelves emptying?
Could we actually see what the plan details are? Nobody seems to know.
No doubt you are having fun on public funds at a climate conference that we already know the outcome of.
Don’t fret over the numbers. It is safe to assume at this point that 71,106 people either have or have had Covid-19 in Cayman.
Or will have sadly
99.9% will be fine
He’s right. Surely people don’t want those ridiculous long press conferences every Friday. We are doing fine, get on with protecting yourself by acting responsibly,
Maybe 50% of people are acting responsibly. Maybe.
I think it’s time for the government to initiate vaccine mandates for indoor venues. As long as people are ignoring social distancing and not wearing masks indoors (just check out any bar on the island), the virus will continue to spread. In many cities in the US, patrons have to show proof of vaccine before they can dine in a restaurant, go to a bar, a theatre, etc. It’s one way to slow the spread.
Get off it, this island has put an end to the unvaxx/vaxxed jiberish. I practiced good hygiene, got double jabbed, wore a mask, social distanced, stayed at home and COVID-19 still found it’s way into my home and I experienced symptoms, not the worst but bad enough to be concerned about the remainder of the time. Break through cases are not rare when most of the population is vaccinated. Everyone I know or I’ve heard that has/had Covid-19 IS vaccinated. Enough of the unvaccinated argument. The vaccinated here have spread it among themselves, this island is the proof it doesn’t matter if you are vaccinated, you can still spread it, you will still get symptoms, you will still test positive weeks later. That’s why we don’t see the reports of the vaccinated and unvaccinated cases it hurts their get vaccinated narrative.
Finally seeing the light, I see. Good for you.
Get on with my profits, dammit. Learn to live with Covid! That is, unless you die first.
Please bring back the full moon, donkey riding man speaking in tongues it was highly entertaining.
He has covid.
We don’t want a long press conference. We want a succinct discussion without all the fluff and word vomit they put in there. They can also do away with all of the others speaking. Make the premier address his bs, then allow the press to ask their questions and done.
BOOM! Drop the mic – you nailed it @6:27p.m. This is exactly what we need.
‘m concerned at the mental health of so many in the community. There are a lot of us who are seemingly content with having the borders remain closed; many others (maybe more) desperate to have them reopen normally but the rationale behind either extreme varies from person to person. This is symptomatic of a purely politicized situation that is playing little to no heed of the actual science involved.
If anyone is capable of being objective for just a few moments, take a look around the world today and you will see that there are multiple approaches to the covid situation all over the planet. There are countries that allow vaccinations of different age groups; there are countries that have banned certain vaccinations that are not banned in others; there are mask mandates in some, none in others. And so on and so forth.
There is basically no consistency in any of it. And that should make you stop and think – hold on, if everyone is pretty much doing their own thing (from the extremes of NZ/Australia to the near total blissful ignorance of it across much of Africa, and everything in between)….what is going on? Where is the emergency? Why the panic here but not there? WHy can that child go to school and play sports infront of 100,000 folks but this child can’t leave her house?
If you just think for a moment, you just may realize that something isn’t right here. And i don’t mean ‘here in Cayman’, i mean everywhere. There’s no logic to this.
IF there was a massive asteroid en route to wipe out the populations, we’d all be on the same page and routing for Bruce Willis to fix it for us. But there isn’t.
And there never was. Something is very wrong here guys. This seems to be less and less about a virus and more and more about control. Why, i have no idea. BUt when limits are being placed on freedom of movement based on signing up to subscription medication – its time to think what is going on.
The US is so concerned about the virus that they’re limiting entry to the country to those Full vaccinated (Whatever that means! It’s different all over the world)…BUT, there are a load of exceptions to their travel ban. And that’s just one example in one country.
Think – if there was a real emergency, would there be any exceptions? The answer is no. And we wouldnt even allow for immuno-compromised or religious exemptions or anyone else, we’d probably shoot them all because there was a clear and present danger to the masses.
But there doesn’t seem to be. And every single ‘fix’ they’ve rolled out? They’ve not worked.
Something isn’t right. The only thing i see consistently on display is fear. And that’s not a good thing, because it clouds judgement and enables those spreading it.
Something isn’t right.
Quote, “I‘m concerned at the mental health of so many in the community.”
Man I’ve been concerned about it for many years, especially in CIG!!! And even more about those in PPM.
I like to subscribe to all the medication I can get.
I guess we will find out
Government has a secret plan, neither the science nor the numbers support it, but they are going to stick to that plan even if it kills you.
Money, money, money, MONEY
Where has Dr. Lee gone? Where are the daily updates?
What the hell does PAC think they are doing?
Are our leaders really this stupid?
As they say on Radio Cayman “There are more questions than answers.”
I can only answer question number 4. The answer is “yes”.
It is a shame that government has decided to let the virus tear through our country at this time when they could have easily slowed or stopped the spread. In a few weeks the new oral meds that cut hospitalizations and deaths by 50% will be available. By then how many will be hospitalized and how many dead when they could have been spared if the focus was on people instead of money.
How would they have stopped it without another full lockdown, curfews, work and school from home?
This spread occurred while the quarantine protocols were in place.
No information for 72 hours – Mushroom strategy on display.
Keep the public in the dark feed them manure and tell them it is good for them.
And the information 72 hours ago was 2 days old.
They certainly pushed the numbers out daily when the pandemic appeared to be under control and won’t now when the pandemic is rapidly growing. Curious!
Love the head’s I win, tails you lose vibe. Wayne and Co have a fantastic plan that will surely work, but if it does not then the blame goes not to the government but to the public. Nice one.
If this government knew thing one about public health they would not be relying on voluntary compliance. That has not worked anywhere on the planet. I challenge anyone to show me a country where reliance on voluntary compliance has not lead to avoidable deaths.
Because the vaccine does not only prevent death it also comes with a dose of honesty.
And now they are also relying on the honesty about results of rapid tests done at home…and to be done for 10 or 14 days in a row in anyone in the household is positive. How much honesty can we expect – especially if wages wouldn’t be paid for being out of work?
When will travel time be updated? It still asks where the traveler is going to quarantine after the 20th.
The CDC is being accepted but to what portal? Any other information going to be needed? Travelers heading down on the 20th may need time to get this information. Please advise. What other testing will be needed on island and where will this be done?
Sure they are Panton, sure they are.
How was first class to Scotland, and how is your 5 star hotel? Been to any michelin starred restaurants yet? Are you going to spend a couple of days teeing off on the scenic links?
And don’t forget to have your photo taken with all those statesmen & politicians, so we minions back here can fully recognise your power and prestige.
Hey – that trip was not about michelin starred restaurants – at least not entirely. Glasgow has a much lower Covid rate so it was logical to get out of here.
Is this a joke?? How can you start bringing back tourists in 3 weeks with no quarantine when you are still running the 2020 Covid suppression playbook? No clear guidance about protocols, the testing system is collapsing, no LFT available, and there 2,000 locked down already. What will happen when a restaurant server tests positive? Shut down the entire place and isolate all staff for two weeks? Maybe customers too? No, there is no official lockdown but there is a creeping one that would be far more extensive if more testing was possible. This made sense last year when there were no options. But testing is only valid at the moment the sample is taken, it isn’t a magic solution. We can’t have thousands of people, especially in the service industry, routinely isolated for extended periods of time and have tourism. This needs a complete re-think or maybe just a think.
If things are working so well, why hasn’t the government reported the COVID-19 test results since last Wednesday Wayne?
That’s part of the plan. Remember Trump’s plan was stop testing and the number of cases will go down. PACT will continue testing, but nobody is keeping score so the results are the same.
Relax! – the results from Thursday will reported 3 January 20022 and the Friday results will be reported on 4 February 2023. Be Patient!
Once a week reporting is fine.
Yes. That keeps the CDC from labeling us a Level 4 so we can get those tourist dollars!
Some test results stats would be nice now CIG. Last stats were Thursday morning based on Wednesday testing. What are the results of the couple thousand tests the last four days?
Shhhh!!! Don’t want the CDC to place us at Level 4.
Only a matter of time and then opening the borders somewhat irrelevant as US recommending people not to travel here … then back on the UK’s red list../:
This isn’t going fine- on a per capita basis our infection rate is right up with the worst,,…
We had a contact tracing quarantine PCR take 56hrs to get turned around from last week. That’s far too long to suggest things are running smoothly. That honest, and subsequently negative-testing primary contact was “out of service” and unable to go to work as a consequence. Need to tighten this up with Rapid tests.
“He said that the increase in transmission was expected and with more testing the positive, cases will increase.”
SMH
Testing doesn’t increase positive cases, it discovers then, transmission through the community increases cases. There is a differences. Cases happen whether you test or not. Testing only helps if you do something with the information.
The general plan the world over has been when cases soar the gov’t increases public health restrictions.
We had the highest cases per capita in the world to start last week but we have no idea where we are now. You can still have 100 people indoors unless you have a really big church building in which case you can have even more people, etc. etc.
We have the adjusted Phase 3 restrictions in place and are confidently moving to Phase 4.
Ya might want to adjust things for a few weeks so it isn’t a complete gong show when the tourists start showing up.
Or maybe the secret plan to end the Pandemic is to just let things rip. If this is the case at least have the ballz to get up in front of people and take questions.
I have some oceanfront property in Arizona
The official stats on the Explore Gov website haven’t been updated since October 28th and those were actually the numbers from October 27th.
Communication continues to be abysmal and no one actually knows what the plan is.
But okay have a nice trip to Scotland.
It’s now 4pm, still crickets from these fools. It is shocking and they should be ashamed at their own incompetence!
Why exactly do you need the numbers? Will it help you in any way or give you something more to complain about..
The bubble is gone. We are going through what every country went through a year ago while we were locked down. The band aid is off..The good thing is almost 80% of the country is vaccinated and we have only 4 in hospital and hopefully we won’t have any more deaths but everyone know that will be inevitable.
There was a plan???
Going forward it’s vital that Govt give more information on the people who are being hospitalized from/with Covid. If they have underlying conditions the public need to know, they need to know if the patient went into hospital for some other reason and then discovered they had Covid after being tested. The Pact really need to be clearer in how it shares info with the public. It will make a huge difference in the way the population will react. They have enough of the fear mongering machine over the last 22 months. That’s why we are so far behind in opening up.
If the critical preparedness and response plans were working would I not be able to find lateral Flow tests on island? Also, why does it seem like most businesses don’t know how to respond to the increased risk associated with the decisions by the PACT administration to relax the supression measures and to essentially allow the virus to wash over the land?
Many residents are waiting on the Cayman borders to reopen.
Let’s hurry hit the benchmark of fully vaccinated residents, 80%; and move to reopen the borders.
COVID-19 is hereto stay and the local population will have to learn to live with it.
Proper Public Healthcare is important and the pandemic is the reality of to why it is so important to monitor, gauge, and properly treat diseases/viruses. The nonchalant behavior towards public health issues, even locally, should not be a matter for fun & games, now the the globe has exposed the problems that were neglected, for too long– and the Cayman Islands was no exception. This is real-world experience.
As for PCR testing results for the Unvaccinated, HSA Public Health Department will still have to ensure confidential, patient medical records are timely updated. Now the secret is out the bag, and in hands of your Private/Personal Healthcare Physicians & Public Health Nurses.
So, get fully vaccinated and let’s reopen the Cayman borders.
Remember to subtract the persons who were fully vaccinated and are no longer because of the waning effects of the vaccine. If we aren’t removing those persons (until they get their booster) then the numbers are not accurate
Lol the plan??? Did you guys hear a plan becuase i missed it. If it wasnt for responsible people we would all be more lost than we are.
Does anyone know the portal for travelers to upload their information? CDC vaccination card approval?
maybe we should all stop talking about covid for 2 weeks.
be adults, be responsible…time to move on.
The Trump strategy. Cool
Are you an ostrich?
So let me see, this was all a calculated move and their figuring must have shown that people would get sick severely, does this mean the Government was accepting of this eventuality and even contemplated that some people may die ? Pretty scary when you consider that you may be the one to end up on a ventilator.
Reckless
Bingo. “Acceptable risk”
Collateral damage. 🙁
What is the price or value of one death by the way …????
Man, lay off the scotch and haggis, or both
You are coming across as being serious
It’s really not April 1…
*whisky
There’s an old saying that suggests never trusting a Scotch drinker. Personally, I don’t trust whisky drinkers.
Yes Wayne Panton all is calm all is bright? When a disastrous opening quarantine policy has led to some awful outcome and consequences for Cayman and the government. We cover it up and ignore it by saying its Working! Working for Who Mr Premier?? Christmas Coming Cayman Silent Night not here yet Mr [premier.But it coming ole buddie it coming.
I care less about the government’s plan than my own: wear my mask, keep my hands clean and do not socialize any more than absolutely necessary. If each of us does the same, community transmission will peter out.
I am triple vaxxed and totally agree with your plan. Sadly it seems that a large number of people, particularly those with no extended family in Cayman, have bought into the idea that they are immune and immortal and are behaving as if it is 2018. Either that or they don’t give a rat’s backside.
Perfectly said.
Even if we WERE immune and immortal, would that remove your care of those that weren’t, or would you just say, “to hell with them”. That is the defining moment.
Karma doesn’t ride a horse, it walks, very patiently, almost a saunter, stopping to smell the flowers.
Covid plans are working says premier! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! I needed that light humor to start off the Monday.
Premier Panton,
Please eliminate quarantine for returning children who are not eligible to be vaccinated!
The Us CDC already done so, it is time to stop punishing our children for something that they can’t do anything about.
How many cases in Cayman now or is it a big secret all of a sudden?
It is intel I cannot access; how about you?
Are we to resort to rumours again, just to feed our hunger for information?