COVID-19 spike continues and prison battles spread
(CNS): More than four months after the SARS-CoV-2 virus returned to these shores in September last year, the number of people testing positive each day continues to climb, and there are at least 20 people currently in the hospital. The prison service is also battling another peak of infections, with 16 staff and 31 inmates in isolation. Over the last three days, more than 1,100 people were positive for COVID-19 from official PCR tests, 549 of them were reported on Tuesday, the latest daily figure supplied by Public Health. As of 25 January, there were 6,088 people in official isolation.
The widespread community transmission is having a serious impact on the workforce in both the private and public sectors. On Thursday officials from the prison service confirmed that healthy personnel are having to work extra hours to cover the gaps created by the absence of so many officers. There are also 30 prisoners at HMP Northward and one female inmate at HMP Fairbanks who are positive for the virus.
Prisons are particularly challenging environments for controlling the spread of the virus, and while there is a high vaccination rate (more than 91%) among prison staff, only 60% of prisoners are fully vaccinated.
“As we have seen a surge in COVID-19 positive cases in the community, it was inevitable that at some point, HMCIPS would also be impacted,” Acting Prison Director Daniel Greaves said in a release Thursday. “While there are a number of challenges with managing any communicable disease within an establishment such as a prison, our response has had to be fluid and evolving to match the situation.”
He said the prison has implemented a number of measures to manage and safeguard prisoners and staff with daily testing. Positive prisoners are moved to an isolation wing, which can hold up to 35 socially distanced prisoners and where they have access to regular checks and care. But at times, category A prisoners are still kept in the high-risk units following breaches of prison rules.
Prisoners with health problems are being closely monitored, and so far just one prisoner required hospital treatment and two prison officers have been admitted to hospital.
The nurse assigned to HMCIPS, Winslett Blake, said prisoners will be taken to hospital if they need treatment. “Prisoners’ health is something we take very seriously. In the event that a prisoner is in need of hospitalisation, they will have access to appropriate hospital facilities and medical practitioners,” she said.
The prison is using technology to help prisoners stay connected to their families, as in-person visits are currently very limited. Instead, inmates are allowed to use social media to keep in touch with family and loved ones. If a visitor requires entry to HMCIPS for any reason they must have a negative lateral flow test (LFT); masks and hand sanitisation is also required before entry to the prison.
All HMCIPS staff and prisoners are required to wear masks at all times. Prisoners required to leave the premises for attendance at court or transportation to the hospital are also LFT tested beforehand, if required.
HMCIPS staff are required to do observed lateral flow tests (LFTs) daily before they enter the prison to report to work. Any staff member who tests positive is then required to comply with Public Health guidelines of confirmation testing and the required isolation period. The prison is also about to repeat a deep cleaning chemical program to Nanotize the entire HMCIPS next month.
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Category: Crime, Health, Medical Health, Prison
The UK mandate for NHS workers has just been dropped because it was illegal. I suspect the mandate here in Cayman on non-citizen work permit holders is therefore also illegal.
It has not been dropped. Fake news
https://www.vox.com/22894978/covid-19-vaccine-lives-saved-deaths-avoided-omicron-chart
“Living with the problem” is a future where we don’t deal with it. We endlessly backpedal on each successive variant that emerges just because some losers can’t be bothered to take 5 minutes to LFT themselves. We shouldn’t want avoidable problems to become endemic. History will record that we resigned in defeat even with the reliable tool that could end this in our hand.
Surrendering to endless bullshit is declaring defeat. The rest of us want to get on with it. No restrictions.
Right on!
17,601 coronavirus deaths were reported in the U.S. during the past week, or 1 death every 35 seconds
With an R0 of 8-15, that means you are choosing yourself over hundreds and probably thousands of downstream hosts. Those people will miss a week or two of work, because of you. They’ll miss their kid’s big game, and some important special events like graduations, weddings, last rights, and funerals. Some of them, including healthy triple vaxed will get quite ill with multi-day fevers. Some may need to go hospital, others might unlock dormant Epstein Barr, accelerate early Diabetes, other illness, or die. Because of your ongoing disinterest in understanding how this works, in the 3rd year. You’ll also keep infecting your own household like a world class moron. All because you are too lazy to take a 5 minute confirmation of status – a courtesy check for your fellow neighbour.
How are we defeated? Given the globalised world we live in a virus like this was always going to become endemic.
History will record that we emerged victorious by rapidly developing an effective vaccine and treatments and returned to normal life within a couple years.
Yes it’s a tragedy that many people died but if you think you can somehow LFT yourself out of the virus becoming endemic, you’re sadly mistaken.
Not only can Cayman easily LFT out of this right now, without lockdown – we could collectively LFT out of this in around 5 minutes. Stagger those community tests over 2 test dates in 1 week and >90% of the community positives are screened out. Divide the alphabet by surname and get it done. The vaccine and prior exposure recovery offer temporary advantage, and only for as long as they do. The last mRNA vaccine approvals were over a year ago from a strain from 3 years ago. We aren’t really open right now with this falsely-confident stance: we are a level 4 avoid travel cautionary tale, running on a deeply flawed and discredited herd immunity “let’s let it wash over us” deflective theory. Visitors are being warned by their federal foreign affairs bureaus not to travel here. Airlines have pulled their flights. Or you can entrust your science lessons and family health to the integrity track record of Boris’ regime.
A lot of words but no substance. Even if your plan worked we’d be back in the same place in a matter of weeks.
While polluting more plastic into the dump and traumatizing children everywhere! What a brilliant idea….
What are you talking about? The children already have to LFT to attend school. If doing a 20 second swizzle of your own nose is so traumatic, then you need some other kind of help.
Yeah there is plastic. Worth it, considering all the other less-worth-it plastic being consumed regularly. The plastic police seem to neglect to take issue with miles of PVC piping from entire condo buildings and houses piled unsorted onto the landfill for decades. Somehow the root of all evil is straws, bags, and now live-saving LFTs.
3 year olds? I think not
There’s nothing preventing all of us from self-testing every single day for 5 minutes, as a normal public courtesy, until community viral levels are reduced to below 1% That’s where “normal” lives, and we (and CMO) should recognise we aren’t at this time anywhere that Goldilocks zone. The cost of the ongoing disruption is a quantum more than these tests.
Stop paying people to administer free PCR tests to people who can afford a LFT and already know they are Covid positive! The cost of wages and repetitive PCR tests must be massive! Stop wasting government funds.
Use the funding to help the elderly pay for needed medical care!
Free non-certified LFT tents for all walk-up takers. Get CITA/DoT to pay for the tests and the time-off stipend for their permit holders that need to take time off work because they are positive. This isn’t just another “pleases rescue us” CIG problem.
I’d be more concerned about the prison battles and less about covid at this point.
Only territory/country in the world with these ridiculous exit PCR tests, and a day 7 test for arriving travelers. Absurd. How can this be justified for vaccinated/boosted people when they are no threat to the hospital space?
Friday U.S. COVID update: More than 3,800 new deaths.
No worries. We are protected by the impenetrable Wakandan shield.
How does a quarantine prevent hospitalizations in vaccinated or unvaccinated. This is incoherent.
Omicron infection multiplier, the R0, is 8-15. That means for each positive, vaxed or not, whether they realise it or not, they will infect 8-15 other people as they walk around not figuring this out. Each of those people will infect 8-15 more and so on. That’s why, with >10% of population positive, we should be LFTing every one of ourselves to ensure we are negative before we go out in public. That’s a human responsponsibility, even if the government hasn’t mandated it as regulations.
MSN reported yesterday that 32 percent of COVID-19 patients in USA hospitals are fully vaccinated, 21 percent of patients in the ICU are fully vaccinated. Many really don’t understand what this vaccine is and isn’t, and that’s why 10% of Cayman is out of commission right now. Too much extreme overconfidence (paired with fails in high school biology).
What are you getting at? Get vaxxed and you probably won’t die. I Am triple vaxxed and currently with covid. I can’t imagine how I would have faired without the vaccine.
PACT is a serious pact of clowns. They claim this testing and isolation idiocy is the the benefit of people, yet if you end up in quarantine after being in their testing lines of cars for HOURS! After that management abortion, there is no one you can call because their phones ring for days with NO ANSWER! No one returns calls or emails and its impossible to see a doctor no matter how sick you are because every single clinic on the island has be HANDCUFFED FROM HELPING because apparently they can’t handle a DAMN FLU according to the idiots in power!
PACT YOU BLISTERING CRETINOUS IMBECILES!!!!
“Most coronavirus restrictions including mandatory face masks were lifted in England on Thursday, after Britain’s government said its vaccine booster rollout successfully reduced serious illness and Covid-19 hospitalizations.”
Just saying..
Omicron subvariant BA.2 appears to have a substantial growth advantage over BA.1, UK health agency says
Denmark, which is dropping all restrictions on Tuesday, reports 51,033 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record
Yes, BA.2 is the flavor of the month now, and it’s 50% more contagious than Omicron! However; no more severe and we’re all going to be exposed to it, like it or not. Given how iffy LFT results are when negative it’s surprising we place such confidence in them.
17,601 coronavirus deaths were reported in the U.S. during the past week, or 1 death every 35 seconds.
Just saying…
8500 die everyday in America or 1 death every 10 second.
Just saying ….
Prison is doing everything in its power to keep inmates safe and covid free, it is the blame of every administration in power for the last 25 yrs that they simply do not have buildings suitable to house inmates. I visited and was searched tested masked and not allowed to touch my friend in any way shape or form. I admire their response my friend is very grateful i can assure you Unfortunately some idiots will never change in life and choose to complain to media outlets and the sorts.
Keep up the best work you can peovide hmp
I know we stopped giving info to our citizens in a timely fashion, but have we stopped sending data to WHO?
I am a keen observer of the Worldmeters site, Cayman has not provided any info since Jan 12.
I know others mention John Hopkins not sure if there is any info on Cayman there, Worldmeters works fine for me.
See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil
This government cannot allow citizens, residents or anybody else to have indirect access to current information through sites like Worldofmeters and the JH site. That would be too embarrassing.
Any one of us can DM them with sourced links to current situation. If 1 in 12 people are positive, that puts us at >8,000 per 100,000, around ten times higher than anywhere else you can name for community positivity. Isreal remains in perceived first place with only 862 per 100k. Amateurs.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html
Our World In Data has Cayman info. Sources are Johns Hopkins and possibly others.
Thanks CITA. You got jealous of the rest of the economy and so decided to drag it all down with you, or wha?
What do you want us all to do sit and kick the ball down the field until eventually it catches up to us? Or do you want to start to learn how to live with it? And the way to live with it is by getting vaccinated…. so stop being so stupid.
Profits over People
The blow up in spread was inevitable unless we stayed with a 14 day quarantine forever. No thanks.
Time to tear the bandage off.
Well it has been torn off, and like the metaphor, ripping off the bandage is never EVER in the best interests of the patient. But you don’t care about that do you? Nope.
Wish we knew what business this one owns so we can avoid it.
The CITA bot foot soldiers have been activated! Deflect, deflect, deflect!!’
How’s a Level 4 Avoid Travel Risk treating you? The Wuhan-derived Comirnaty vaccine will only work for so long, and then what? A new variant could present or originate here at any time, changing the assumptions once again. Putting your fingers in your ears is not a plan.
Omicron subvariant BA.2 appears to have a substantial growth advantage over BA.1, UK health agency says.
Bad moon rising.
Stupid yuh mumma!
We are destroying the rest of the economy.
Realistically, tourism of any impact is 2-3 years out.
Now that’s stupid does as stupid says.
Does anyone care to share which business owners are so adamant to abandon precautions or want everyone to think Covid is over?
Because one now should wonder if they feel the same about food safety and sanitation in their businesses.
CIG employee attitude alert.
Keep me in my bubble. Keep paying me. It’s all about me.
$16 every second is spent on their wages.
Did someone in government hurt you? Is that person in the room with you now?
If you’ve been on the island for longer than three months someone in government hurt you. The amount of hoops you have to jump through is pain enough.
Change the rules on PCR exit testing. As a society, we cannot operate with people remaining in isolation for weeks on end when they are not contagious. Simple.
“inmates are allowed to use social media”
I thought this was standard practice?
Just simplify things – 5 days of isolation and if no symptoms, move on. Surely CIG can follow what the US, UK and Canada are doing for a sustainable long-term, practical policy.
Everyone is going to be exposed at some point in the next month or two so this is becoming pointless, unsustainable and draconian.
Yes, let us follow the U.S.
17,601 coronavirus deaths were reported in the U.S. during the past week, or 1 death every 35 seconds
I guess PACT is going to loosen more restrictions like they normally do whenever the Covid numbers climb.
Follow the money, bobo
It’s almost getting like the old days of lockdown, we have much less traffic on the roads. Make the most of it, just wait until the cruise ships and airline tourists are back when with the aid of the closure of Cardinal Ave, we will all be stuck in all day traffic jams.
No cruise ships ever
Plague Ships
Are those in isolation have symptoms or just positive?
Many people I know have had symptoms for a day or two and then felt “normal” again. However, they keep testing positive so they can’t get out of quarantine jail.
Because they are positive
Because the dead COVID virus material stays in one’s system for up to 90 days. It is a flaw in the PCR test. Also, a German court judge ruled that only positives found at 25 cycles or less is admissable.
More unsubstantiated fake news.
NYT has a diagram that shows clearly that viral load precedes and continues beyond symtomatic phase as virus is cleared. Further recommended that those “recovered”/released should wear KN95 for at least a week afterwards:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/01/22/science/charting-omicron-infection.html?searchResultPosition=1
What is a “prisoner” these days? 10% of the law-abiding residents are forced to say locked up in their homes. Many of whom are already feeling the high cost of inflation and now have to pay a delivery fee for everything they buy. Not everyone gets paid go sit on zoom calls all day and have to show up to work to get paid.
Time to stop doing PCR exit tests This protocol has been abandoned by most of the free world. If you get a negative LFT you should be allowed to freely move about whether its day 3 or day 7.
Whilst this is not the case at the Prison, I’m fearing that maybe more persons are getting infected whilst testing! The testing setup at some facilities allows for those that are “sick/positive/symptomatic” to be in close contact with those that are not and just verifying for travel purposes etc.
As someone else posted elsewhere, all these positives and thankfully so very few hospitalizations/deaths. A good result.
Continuing with this relentless testing, isolating, etc is futile. Quarantining arrivals is futile (what are they doing, bringing in something that’s not here? Nope, its’ here)
Vaccinations are here for all who wish, boosters too for all who wish. it’s long past time to stop ‘nannying’ us and we all take our own risk assessments back into our own hands and move on
it is very clear whether vaccinated or not, the same people by and large are vulnerable. They know who they are, they can take care of themselves now with distancing, masking if they wish, vaccinations, etc…those who can’t do these but are vulnerable should shield.
Everyone else needs to be left alone. It is total chaos in the community, economy, tourism, education, etc. Enough now thank you. And to all the teachers demanding that kids wear masks (that don’t work) all day long, shame…if you’re that scared, wear 2 masks yourselves, lose weight, go for a walk, eat better, get some sun, you’ll be amazed. but get back to work properly.
Yes, let’s allow even more widespread infections for profits!
Yes. Let’s stay in our basement wearing masks only walking outdoors to get our twelfth jab all while getting good salaries for doing nothing by a ridiculously humongous government labour force.
Welcome back, basement boy. We’ve missed you like the “fix the dump” guy, except his message was more relevant.
We still don’t have basements, metaphorical or otherwise.
Agree with you that the jabs are over with, at least for me. I did my part and have zero interest in “booster 17” or any other. Fauci is talking about a universal vaccine that will handle all past and future variants, even though it is absolutely impossible to know the makeup of future variants.
That’s a no from me. No more boosters. No more shots. No more.
This is ridiculous this government is so unprofessional they tried their hardest to be like the world and now we are now infected. Why not have an island free from the virus why are you putting our old and vulnerable in danger!
We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out.
Break out the ether.
It’s remarkable that the prison staff pay this exceptional LFT courtesy to incarcerated prisoners, while normal public and private sector businesses don’t have to abide this same standard of precaution for the wider law-abiding public.
Yeah, won’t be reporting. Two consecutive days of negative LFTs is more than sufficient for self release.
Plague Rat