137 more people added to COVID cases
(CNS): Officials were unable to confirm the exact number of active cases of COVID-19 in Cayman on New Years Eve but Chief Medical Officer Dr Autilia Newton reported 137 new cases, nine in travellers and 128 across the community, including three in the Sister Islands. Of these, 49 of were picked up via lateral flow tests and the rest through PCR testing.
While the number of confirmed cases of the Omicron variant remained at 44 on Friday, officials said there were another 332 probably Omicron cases. Five COVID-19 patients remain in hospital with one new admission on Thursday. The total number of cases recorded in the Cayman Islands since the start of the pandemic stood at 9,080.
Meanwhile, the vaccine numbers have increased slightly since the last report, and 83% of the estimated population has had at least one dose, while 80% has had two. The number of people receiving a third shot is 17,114 (24%).
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Category: Health, Medical Health
Government should reduce the self isolation requirement for fully vaccinated persons to 1O days with an negative exit test even if omicron. That would still be longer than the UK and US that requiring 7 and 5 days respectively. While more the omicron variant is contagious, it is less virulent and it makes no sense to require a longer quarantine for the fully vaccinated than for the Delta variant. A lot of unnecessary hardship is being created for students needing to return to University and visitors needing to return to their jobs.
When they refer to travellers are these cases of people arriving or people testing before leaving?
Wait, is Dr Autilia Newton now officially our new full-time CMO? Or is she just acting interim in that capacity until we find and recruit someone full time? With respect, her career dossier doesn’t exactly have a track record of staying put anywhere very long. It doesn’t feel good to have a career temp in this role while the water around us recedes for our tsunami of Omicron.
CNS: Dr Newton was introduced as the interim CMO and there has been no indication that she is here permanently or wants to be. Her actual job is running the Public Health England Overseas Territories team and her expertise is in infectious disease management. So taking the job of Cayman Islands CMO would be a significant step down. It appears that she is deployed for short periods where she is needed so that, for example, the Cayman Islands is not left without a CMO during a pandemic. Trying to portray that as job hopping and calling someone with her qualifications a “career temp” is demeaning and ignorant. Stop it.
Objectively in comparison to Dr. Lee, she is a major step up.
Well said CNS!!!!
The effects of long Covid are real. The lasting effects of Covid such as loss of taste and smell, and memory loss is real. Those who believe that we should just get on with it obviously have none of these issues or family members that do. The selfishness of the human race has never been so clearly seen during this pandemic. The fact of the matter is that most people do indeed, suck.
So what do you expect people to do for a disease that will likely be circulating permanently?
Establish safe conditions for public buildings such as new ventilation systems, continue proper mask and sanitizer use. Reduce capacities in enclosed spaces until the pandemic is over, and transition to remote work as well.
The effects of cancer and its treatments are real. The effects of cardiac bypass are real. The effects of a stroke are real. The effects of multiple sclerosis are real. The effects of COPD are real. The effects of any trauma are real.
Get busy living or get busy dying. Fear kills, believe or not. Fear can send a person’s fight-or-flight response into overdrive, triggering a flood of hormones that could cause the body, and in particular the heart, to become fatally imbalanced.
Thanatophobia is a form of anxiety characterized by a fear of one’s own death or the process of dying. It is commonly referred to as death anxiety.
With all due respect, I can’t catch multiple sclerosis from someone at the supermarket.
Wearing masks and keeping 6 feet separation isn’t really a double-dare courage test, it’s literally the minimum public courtesy that should extended to the adjacent non-household person. It’s backed by public health orders and a catalogue of sadly theoretical RCIPS ticketable offences. Believe that or not.
Everyone out in public should mentally imagine they are wearing one of those inflatable sumo costumes to ensure situational awareness of mandated 6 ft separation. A minimal effort courtesy lost on so many. Tailgating doesn’t make the line move faster.
11:51, Mandate all CIG public servants and healthcare workers get vaccinated.
No more mandates!!!
I had a minor cold, lost my sense of smell for two weeks and that was it.
Just stupid now: if boosted you don’t die in hospital from omicron, the now dominant strain. So why are we worrying? Unvaccinated don’t matter.
Who told you boosted don’t die?
Ps. They are wrong
Read the American death data. The majority of people who died in December that died of COVID were unvaccinated or had underlying conditions such as obesity, asthma or diabetes.
So, they are expendable?
Maybe if you’re over 80 and boosted you may have a slightly higher chance of having severe illness from Omicron but for everyone else? You’re wrong, it’s going to be extremely mild in 99.9% of cases if boosted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/28/omicron-how-severe-us/
Cool, except that Delta is still the most prominent strain, which is as deadly as ever
Statistically boosted or non-boosted have nearly a 100% survival rate.
“unvaccinated don’t matter”
This statement and far worse has been allowed and even promoted for a year. It’s sick.
These post travel testing is so expensive! For three days? Why can’t just have one test on day 2 and or drop it. There is a pre-travel test as well. As we swe most cases are in community now. With omicron it really doesn’t matter.
How much is it? We are attending a Caymen wedding in a June and I’m curious about the Covid testing costs.
CI$25 per test.
LFT’s are widely available, <$5 at the gas station, pharmacies, and supermarkets. To have a COVID tent supervise and authenticate result, it's $25 per test. Not onerous. Less than 15 minute pit stop.
Less than 15 minute pit stop? BS. My day 10 at the HSA centre took over an hour and a half. Day 2 at a private clinc about 45 minutes, day 5 at the West bay walking over an hour. If you register with a private clinic you have to fill out their paperwork plus additional paperwork for the government – this is NOT like the US where you register online with CVS and turn up, show ID and get swabbed.
If you are coming a) book appointments for the tests – the walk in clinics are always rammed b) i appreciate that the over the counter LFTs are useless for the day 2, 5 and 10 checks – those have to be supervised and the results reported to the HSA (one reason the process is so long is filling out all the paperwork – for the private sector clinic to register as a patient, for the government _even though they already have all your details when you applied to Travel Cayman and received you test card on arrival!)
Oh, and BTW these are just the post arrival tests – to leave you will need either a LFT (another $25) or for some countries including canada a PCR, $125. So for a US family round trip minimum $100 per head (excluding the pre flight LFT – assuming you get that for free).
What is onerous is taking 2 hours out of your day when you are a tourist only here for one week. Testing on Days 2, 5 and 24 hours before one leaves.
Really onerous. Would not advise tourists to come here with all the hassle.
By the way, testing in the Seven Mile Beach Corridor is not 15 minutes but between and hour and a half and 2 hours to get results.
International travel during a global health pandemic is probably going to be too hard for a lot of Sarasota Steves. That’s okay.
The world’s smallest violin playing a sad tune for poor Steve
A sad but real tune for tourists visiting here. Though certainly few of them these days.
People in the U.S. and Canada have other travel options in the region that only require one to be fully vaccinated and have a negative test 24 hours before departure.
On a flight here from Florida it appeared that everyone I talked to owned a place on island. Believe these are the only people coming here now.
Can’t really say I blame them with a the hassles once here.
1. Testing access, speed, and organisation is enviably efficient here, unlike most countries
2. Supervised authenticated testing is comparatively cheap, and must be factored as part of cost of travel to any country
3. 44+332 suspect = 376 Omicron out of nearly 5000 active Delta cases (92.5% of all cases) means that no mental rules or expectations should be changing just yet.
4. Many of the same current active cases will recover only to succumb to Omicron-proper in the weeks ahead. We need to be prepared for that.
The dislikes for this thoughtful post with facts is remarkable, but not at all surprising
Omicron has rendered all the vaccination and testing mandates a farce. No reduction in spread from these measures.
Maybe, but Omicron is still sequencing less than 10% of confirmed cases. Which means we are still in a Delta wave, like it or not.
Cayman needs to shift its focus from reporting all the cases, variants, and locking up entire households for at least 15 days to educating the community on how to live and deal with COVID if and when you test positive.
It isn’t sustainable to have every single person who tests positive on island to be tracked closely on an individual basis by HSA. Yes numbers as a whole should be reported for the publics knowledge but HSA cannot keep up with the admin.
If Cayman can’t trust its people to quarantine when they test positive then there is a larger issue here in regards to behavior and education. Yes there will always be people in society who break rules (which isn’t new). But more people will be willing to do at-home tests if they know they can monitor their own 10 day quarantines.
Also, before people place blame on tourists for being the COVID spreaders (aka not wanting to follow the rules) … tourists have to take a PCR test to fly home so they really aren’t wanting to catch COVID on island regardless of the laws in place. They are probably more responsible with their actions than locals are due to this reason.
The real threat is in the community. It’s the stress locals feel due to the possibility of a criminal-like lockup for 15 days of the entire household IF you test positive. This is scary because less people will be willing to voluntarily test themselves!
Some food for thought – the roads at night here are way more dangerous than COVID itself from the huge number of people who drink and drive! No Uber and taxis charge way too much so it results in locals drunk driving every weekend. I wish the government would put an ounce of effort and resources that they do into COVID into this ongoing issue on island. Please start reporting on a dashboard the number of accidents, hospitalizations, and deaths from drunk driving!
Also, omicron is the new dominant variant around the world. Let’s move on from the differing rules between what variant you are suspected or confirmed to have.
You’d probably prefer Omicron over Delta if you know what’s up!
Cayman has a difficult time rolling with the new. It has always been that way… so they may benefit from the us of external authorities on how to deal with the ever-changing COVID situation.
As far as the public is being advised in the Cayman Islands,<10% are categorised as either suspect or confirmed Omicron, which means we are still very much in a Delta wave. We seem to be lagging a few weeks behind the rest of the world and would do better to pay attention to leading experiences and note their headline policy U-turns.
Agree with most of this except that Certified LFT’s are accepted for entrance into most countries, the US included.
This is all just optics and politics. I know several people who contracted Omicron whist traveling overseas. None would have known if not for mandatory testing. None are Ill beyond a stuffy nose at best. People who are vulnerable need to protect themselves. Otherwise, let’s get over this. Enough is enough. I for one am done with the restrictions.
So, you are perfectly ok with a virus that may be mild for some, but that may kill others, while Delta is still in circulation?
Almost all viruses are mild for some and deadly for others.
Stages of Omicron denial…
1. There are only a few cases of Omicron.
2. Cases are up but not hospitalizations.
3. Hospitalizations are up but not ICU admissions.
4. ICU admissions are up but not deaths.
5. Deaths are up but nobody could have predicted this would happen
We seem to be stuck on point 2?
Stages of Omicron Truth as of Jan 4th 2022
1. There are going to be a ton of cases. Over 1 million new cases in US just today.
2. Hospitalizations have remained relatively level so far despite the large number of cases. This is what we saw in both South Africa and now in the UK.
3. ICU admissions again level.
4. Deaths going down.
5. In previous strains like delta it was more virulent. Omicron is now looking like the natural vaccine.
Was the main endpoint in this pandemic to encourage all people to get vaccinated to prevent severe disease?
Or is the objective to have NO positive PCR results.
This virus is clearly not going away.
If you are fully vaccinated and have no symptoms- carry on with life…
If you are high-risk,unvaccinated or vaccinated, these vulnerable individuals should be cautious and isolate themselves from high risk areas.
Where are our world healthcare leaders in explaining the virulence of this weak COVID strain and helping to foster a realistic approach to protecting the vulnerable persons and not the low risk, fully vaccinated persons with no symptoms,
This is never going to end otherwise.
In my country, fully vaccinated healthcare workers who test positive but are asymptomatic are asked to attend work and not isolate…..
What does tell us about vaccine effacy?- the message I take home from this is that the vaccines prevent severe disease not eliminating transmission altogether!
Those positive results will forever be out there…….if you go looking for them.
Everyone needs to be vaccinated and if chose not to be then you are considered high risk and by now, surely understand the consequences that we are all suffering because of you!
This system is cracking!
Looks like the Uk will drop the pre departure and arrival testing soon as it is pointless. From the daily telegraph today:
‘ Despite omicron now accounting for almost all cases in Britain, the border testing regime is continuing to have a significant impact on the aviation and travel industry, which has warned that the additional expense and bureaucracy is proving a “major deterrent” to travel.’
‘ Pre-departure tests for holidaymakers could be scrapped, with ministers arguing privately that they have been rendered pointless by the rapid spread of the omicron variant.’
The Telegraph understands that a number of senior government figures are pushing for the test requirement to be dropped, with the issue expected to be raised when travel rules are reviewed on Wednesday.’
When will cayman do the same and drop this expensive testing for us so the boosted can travel freely?
@4:05
What “same” do you want Cayman to do?
The UK has not yet lifted the travel testing requirement.
I fail to see the wisdom in blindly following the UK example in light of the fact that the UK has a track record of being a hot bed of Covid cases, illnesses and death. We are NOT the UK, or USA or UAE, or planet Vulcan. The people of the Cayman Islands should be capable of charting a wise and safe course that will protect the health and safety of Caymanians. Anti-restriction nutcases act as if Omicron is the last Covid variant we will see. Science says that is certainly not the case. If other countries become lax in travel testing policy, that is all the more reason for us to ensure those coming from those countries are tested since future variants will in all probability spawn in those countries. We may have dodged a bullet with Omicron, but the next variant may not be as kind. Letting our guard down now is a moronic idea.
The Daily Telegraph! They welcomed covid as natural selection and survival of the fittest. Please move on.
hospitalisations still lower than they have been for months….
that is the only relevant stat.
Right. Totally irrelevant that numbers globally are escalating like never before and it’s no big deal that those with compromised immune systems and underlying conditions such as disability may become infected because vaccinated people feel invincible.
Why does “learning to live with covid” mean “people need to accept the deaths of loved ones and long covid” and not “businesses need to learn to live with the isolation period and improve their ventilation”?
Stages of Omicron denial…
1. There are only a few cases of Omicron.
2. Cases are up but not hospitalizations.
3. Hospitalizations are up but not ICU admissions.
4. ICU admissions are up but not deaths.
5. Deaths are up but nobody could have predicted this would happen
Went for a LFT today at the HSA clinic. Only place open on a public holiday, and only open from 10 until 12, and you cannot make an appointment. Got there at 9:30, and there was already a queue. Got into the building around 1030. Didn’t get my test for another hour. How on earth were they going to process all the travelers arriving 2, 5 and 10 days ago if it takes that long per person?
Private clinics. Total Health for example has daily openings that you can book online. Went three times in the last couple weeks. Lines not too long because they book in 15 minute slots online so line size is kept manageable.
Its CI $120 a test. There are three of us so it was CI$360 ($430 USD) a day. So almost US$1,300 for the three test days for us. So not cheap.
Cant imagine tourists want to go through all of this. It is a hassle to do this three times. If you come for two weeks, you need four tests (including the final test to get on the flight). And any positives, you get locked down.
(plus the proof of travel medical insurance for visitors).
It is CI$25 a test everywhere my guests have been. Not sure what you are doing wrong, but certainly something.
You only need the LFT’s which are $25 each. Sounds like you are paying for the travel PCR tests. Man you got scammed big time…
According to the Total Health website, only PCR tests are offered and yes, they do cost $120 CI, which is the standard price now on Grand Cayman. There is no mention of LFT’s at that facility. You did not need PCR tests to comply with the requiments on days 2, 5 and 10.
By law, it’s supposed to be CI$25/test for the lateral flow test. If they charged you this much for LFTs, you should demand a refund. If they were doing PCR tests each time(which would cost $120 each), that was unnecessary, as the LFT is accepted. If that was the case, I am so sorry that a private clinic would do this to you.
If you go onto their website it states CI $120 for the RT-PCR test. The day 2, 5, and 10 tests are LFT which is for $25 each day so $75 in total.
Should have got there at 11,55am
This sounds more like you did not investigate properly. All of my guests went to the Marriot testing centre on Christmas morning, run by Doctor’s hospital which I am fairly sure was a public holiday. In and out within 10 minutes.
https://www.doctorshospitalcayman.com/covid-19
There are private offices that were open on the public holiday.
Can they tell us (in the Sister Islands), if the cases are in Little Cayman or Cayman Brac, they should know, we can only go by rumors.
@3:39:
So far the “news” I get from various frenz on WhatsApp ends up being accurate and a hella lot more comprehensive and timely that the pathetic drips we get from Government. And it deals with all three islands. I even get names and vax status. The Marl Road must fill in for the sorry and hardly transparent way the PACT government dribbles out Covid news and data.