Over 600 more people infected with COVID-19

| 11/01/2022 | 77 Comments

(CNS): The number of people admitted to hospital who have tested positive for COVID-19 increased to seven over the weekend but Public Health officials have not stated whether or not these admissions were because of the coronavirus or for other reasons.

But with more than 600 new cases reported this weekend and over 4.8% of the population currently confirmed positive, the spread of the virus continues to seriously impact the islands as government institutions and commercial premises close to the public to be sanitized or due to staff shortages.

According to the latest figures released Monday night from Interim Chief Medical Officer Dr Autilia Newton, 128 cases of the Omicron variant have been confirmed but there are at least 1,487 more likely cases.

Of the 608 new cases of COVID-19 reported over the weekend, 22 were in travellers and 586 within the community. These included another 25 cases in the Sister Islands, and although Public Health did not provide a breakdown, most are believed to be on Cayman Brac.

There are 3,430 confirmed active cases of the virus, 100 of which are in the Sister Islands, and 3,166 linked to community transmission. Cayman has now recorded a total of 11,226 cases of the virus since March 2020 but around 10,500 were in the last four months.

Meanwhile, the needle moved only slightly on vaccine take-up, with 59,022 people now having had a one shot, 57,493 have had two doses and 18,158 peopl have received a booster shot.

Around the world the coronavirus continues to surge as Omicron proves to be as contagious as experts predicted and news has emerged of more variants. Scientists are debating on the findings of Leonidos Kostrikis, a researcher in Cyprus, who claimed to have found a variant that combines characteristics of Delta and Omicron, having identified 25 cases of “Deltacron”.

Kostrikis, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology, has strongly refuted suggestions that his team’s findings could be a laboratory error. However, many experts are saying it is still too early to tell whether or not this will be the next strain of concern for the world.


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Category: Health, Medical Health

Comments (77)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    The Governor needs to get on with getting us the vaccines for our children. Once that is in place, the vaccinated can fight this off fairly well and the unvaccinated, well, as my Grandmother used to say, if you can’t hear, I’ll bet you can feel.

    • Anonymous says:

      The sentiment that “it’s only those people who will die” should not bring you comfort.

      Putting aside the vacuum of humanity it takes to believe that and to declare it aloud, the societal acceptance of a class who deserves death means that everyone in that society is in danger.

      • Anonymous says:

        Well, They have been given every opportunity to get vaccinated, what more can anyone do. Stop blaming everyone but yourselves.

  2. Anonymous says:

    It’s baffling that people think a vaccine prevents infection. It’s like complaining that seatbelts and airbags and alert driving does not eliminate accidents resulting in hospitalizations and death. Clearly they have reduced the rate of serious outcomes from covid.
    Without vaccinations, the hospitalization and death rates would have given us a very woeful time in history, indeed. Not being vaxxed, masked, and other preventative measures disregards public health like drink driving and looking at the phone while speeding along and “trusting god” as though one were the only person impacted by such behaviour.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Cayman needs to do a couple of things right away:

    – For entry, allow arrivers to present a negative COVID test OR a positive PCR test that is older than 14 days and younger than 180 days old. Other countries have done this. This will help eliminate the strain on testing.

    – Eliminate quarantine for unvaccinated returning residents (mostly children) who have had covid within the last 180 days. I’m hearing stories of children with covid in December in the UK or US and now quarantining for 14 days again here because they aren’t eligible for the vaccine yet. They are not a risk to our society.

    – AND…just get rid of the quarantine for unvaccinated children. Let them follow their parents’ status and also do the LFT testing on day 2 and 5.

    We can see now that returning children are not the risk to our island. Being out and about is a bigger risk.

  4. Anonymous says:

    This is a complete waste of time now, let’s crack on.

    • Anonymous says:

      Today’s data from the US breaks another record again. 145,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19, highest since pandemic began. Why is this important data?

      Hospitalizations from Covid place an enormous strain on hospitals and staff and place those who need life saving treatment at risk.

      But sure, let’s crack on

      • Anonymous says:

        January 12, 2022

        U.S. COVID update: Cases and hospitalizations at record-high, deaths rising

        – New cases: 908,916
        – Average: 791,803 (+27,457)
        – States reporting: 50/50
        – In hospital: 150,119 (+4,247)
        – ICU: 25,170 (+557)
        – New deaths: 2,665
        – Average: 1,817 (+95)

    • Anonymous says:

      Meanwhile, in heavily vaxxed NYC, The Bronx has a Covid positivity rate of 38.9%. Schools previously closed at 3%.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Good article on the evolution of Covid and how to manage it in the Guardian today –

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/11/will-covid-19-become-less-dangerous-as-it-evolves

    • Anonymous says:

      Excellent article!

      “Transforming Covid into a disease that we can truly live with requires more than a national vaccination campaign and wishful thinking; it requires a global effort to improve surveillance for new variants, and supporting countries to tackle outbreaks at source when they emerge. It also requires greater investment in air purification and ventilation to reduce transmission within our own borders, if we’re mixing indoors.

      Everyone hopes that the coronavirus will evolve to become milder, and that Covid becomes endemic – or rather, manageable enough not to blight our daily lives. But these are hopes, not facts, and repeating these mantras won’t make them happen any faster.”

  6. Anonymous says:

    This has got past the point of farce now.

    I’m planning to travel next month to visit family and am now actively trying to catch covid now so that I can avoid the risk of catching it while off island and getting stuck because Cayman still insists on having a negative test before you arrive on island where currently 5-10% of the population already have covid as of today and 20-30% of the population have had it in the past few months. The official numbers will be grossly underreported for all the reasons previously highlighted by other posted.

    Faced with the possibility of getting stranded off island with a bill of several thousand dollars for hotels, rearranged flights and an unknown timeline for getting home versus a couple of days of a head cold (if I even get that), it’s now an absolute no brainer that you might as well catch it at a point that’s most convenient to you. You’re probably getting it anyway.

    That’s the state of play given these utterly ridiculous and arbitrary rules. I can fly to my destination without the need to get tested but I need to get tested to come back to cayman. So I’m better off catching it now.

    Like I said. Farce.

  7. Anonymous says:

    this should be the final public advice on covid/omicron:
    get vaxxed or risk losing social freedoms and risk getting seriously ill.
    if old/sick/at risk….protect yourself as much as possible.
    if you test positive ..isolate at home until asympotmatic.
    everything else returns to normal.
    there is nothing more to be done or said.
    the testing/tracing cycle of nonsense achieves nothing with this level of communitiy transmission

  8. Bert says:

    Deaths from covid of the fully vaccinated tracker updated to zero.

  9. Anonymous says:

    I’ve been living very well with a number of “co-morbidities” for almost 15 years – chronic cardiac disease, chronic kidney disease, HPB, diabetes and lupus! As such, I’m very immuno-compromised and live with covid around with all that constantly in my mind. I’m also triple vaxxed.

    My doctors have me in very good physical condition and I live a normal, active life. If I were to contract covid it could make me seriously ill, or worse. However, if I were to catch covid and succumb, I trust my cause of death will be listed as COVID strictly! My co-morbidities are very well managed and have not been an immediate threat to my life in many years.

    My point – please disregard this stupid notion that co-morbidities kill covid patients and covid has nothing to do with it!! How come those co-morbidities didn’t kill until covid entered the picture?

    • anon says:

      10.38am So the doctors are wrong and you know better?>

    • Anonymous says:

      Exactly. The COVID-19 Virus suppresses your body’s immune system, that would otherwise fight infections & normalize the functionality of your organs.
      Hence, COVID-19 accelerates your mortality, especially if you are not fully vaccinated & boosted.
      Also, enforce a healthy lifestyle/health regimen to help ensure you live your best possible life.

    • Anonymous says:

      … My doctors have me in very good physical condition …hmmmm. ..🤷‍♀️

      Majority have no idea what they’re talking about when they say “immunocompromised”. In general, it is an immune DEFICIENCY. One usually get sick more often, stays sick longer, and is more vulnerable to different types of INFECTIONS.
      .
      ✔️Lupus- your body fights against its own tissues = immune system overactive NOT weakened!
      ✔️CCD, CKD, HPB are all lifestyle and diet related, with exceptions of course. One having these chronic conditions is NOT immunocompromised.
      ✔️ Are People with Diabetes Immunocompromised? The short answer? No, people with diabetes are not immunocompromised. CWD Board member and chairman of Grunberger Diabetes Institute, George Grunberger, MD, FACP, FACE, said, “ We don’t believe that well controlled diabetes, of either type, compromises immune system.”
      Having diabetes isn’t what makes someone’s immune system weaker, but chronic high blood sugars and out-of-range numbers can weaken the immune system, leaving people more susceptible to illness and complications from illnesses.

      The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health defines immunocompromisd as, “Having a weakened immune system. Patients who are immunocompromised have a reduced ability to fight infections and other diseases. This may be caused by certain diseases or conditions, such as AIDS, cancer, diabetes, malnutrition, and certain genetic disorders. It may also be caused by certain medicines or treatments, such as anticancer drugs, radiation therapy, and stem cell or organ transplant. Also called immunosuppressed.”

      Since all your chronic conditions are well managed, you are not immunocompromised. I don’t how well your lupus is managed, it is an autoimmune disorder, not an immune deficiency.

      Being overweight is the major factor that determines the outcome of covid infection. As it turns out fat cells produce cytokines. The more fat cells the more cytokines.

      So despite having few chronic conditions, which are well managed, you’re not immunocompromised and your chances to beat covid are good unless you are obese. In this case, early treatments save lives and prevent hospitalizations. Sadly, early treatments are not offered in Cayman. But the tide is changing-politicians, scientists and doctors are being extensively questioned now WHY for nearly 2 years the focus was and still is on vaccines only.

      • Anonymous says:

        Facebook science believer has logged on

      • Anonymous says:

        11@ 1:10 pm – Moron. I’m the patient, not you Google clown! My lupus is controlled by meds which make me immuno-compromised! The meds have to do that to suppress the auto_immune properties of the lupus! Get it? You can’t interpret what you Google, can you?

        I never suggested that my other ailments make me immuno-compromised, they don’t more than usual but they collectively make me more vulnerable. As to the term “co-morbidities” it’s a term used for live patients also, it indicate the various life-threatening ailments.. it doesn’t just apply after death.

        But I stand by my point that if covid takes me call it covid, don’t call it heart, or lupus, or whatever! Obviously covid weakens the system, making it harder for other weakened systems/organs to function…that’s exactly the point! Ultimately covid caused the death!

        Go back under your rock!

    • Anonymous says:

      It sounds like any infection would finish you off if you are that immuno-compromised, so really makes no difference whether it is Covid, a cold, the flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, you name it.

      • Anonymous says:

        11 @ 2:20 pm – ‘Immuno-compromised’here. Sarcasm aside, you are correct and my docs have warned me accordingly. I live with the cautions I have to take. Don’t take for granted your health and the time you have. You could die from covid or get hit by a bus and I could read about it. Who knows?

    • Anonymous says:

      Plans for “living with COVID” should be about mask mandates, crowd limits, access to healthcare, and remote options – not throwing all caution to the wind and leaving vulnerable populations to die.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Can we now stop the barbaric 14 day quarantine and if positive only then quarantine for five, not the whole household!! The spread is already island wide so no need to have perfectly healthy people quarantine. Those that got vaccinated are vax and those that chose not to well they didn’t so let’s move on with our lives, protect ourselves and learn to survive with these viruses. Time to move on.

  11. JTB says:

    Meanwhile the government continues with policies designed to prevent Covid getting into the community …

    • Anonymous says:

      Fighting last year’s war. The quarantine rules for travelers made sense when we had no Covid on the island. Doesn’t make any sense any more!!

  12. Anonymous says:

    How can this be true with over 80% of the population fully vaccinated. There should be no one testing positive of Covid-19 unless they are unvaccinated. Do the vaccines not work? Have we been lied to? I have had all 3 shots and I was sick as a dog with Covid-19 over the Holidays. I feel I may have lied to as the only people I know who aren’t sick, are my friends and family who have refused the jab.

    • Anonymous says:

      You haven’t been lied to; you just apparently can’t read. The vaccines lessen, but do not completely stop, transmission. Same applies to severe illness and death, but even more so.

      If you don’t know this by now you never will.

    • Anonymous says:

      No you haven’t been lied to – you simply haven’t made yourself aware of the facts from reputable sources. The vaccine does not necessarily stop you from getting covid. That is universally acknowledged and nobody said you couldn’t get covid if you’d received the vaccine. What the vaccine DOES do very well is to prevent you from dying of it. If you look at the statistics from around the world, they stand for themselves. People are not dying from covid in the vast numbers that they were, before the vaccine became available. If you want to follow someone who speaks common sense and knows what he’s talking about, I’d advise you to listen to Dr John Campbell – you’ll find him on Youtube; he has over 2 million followers many of whom are in the medical world. He doesn’t make it up as he goes along and you can trust what he says is true. Check him out!

    • STX says:

      Well maybe lie is too strong of a word. They initially said if you got vaccinated you would be protected (like every other vaccine in the world), then they said you wouldn’t be able to inflect others if you were vaccinated, then they stated you would only be mildly sick if you were vaccinated, and now they say it should keep you out of the hospital if you are vaccinated. I don’t want to brag, but the orange juice and chicken soup I use do the exact same thing.

      • Anonymous says:

        Since the panademic, I have done a handstand for 30 seconds every morning.

        I have not had COVID yet, I may be triple vaxed, but it must be the hand stand that is workng.

        Everyone should do a 30 second handstand everyday to stop the infection and stop this going to hospital if you cant breath stuff, just do a handstand.

    • Anonymous says:

      When you I’ll you listen and stop saying only unvaccinated get covid. The vaccine keeps you alive with less severe symptoms! That’s it

    • Anonymous says:

      The vaccines do not prevent you catching Covid – they prevent you from getting really sick from it – so yes they do work or we’d have a lot more people in hospital.

    • Anonymous says:

      Maybe the vaccine prevented you from dying. You know, like it’s supposed to.

    • Anonymous says:

      @10:21am..You are an idiot and nothing more than an anti-vaxxers.Stop spewing ignorance!

    • Incredulous says:

      How are people still this uninformed? It really beggars belief.

    • Anonymous says:

      You sir need a new brain

    • Anonymous says:

      as has been clearly stated for over a year, the vaccine greatly reduces your chances of hospitalization, death and Long Covid.
      It doesn’t stop infection, but then no-one has claimed it does (except you)

      Did you know wearing a seltbelt while driving doesn’t prevent you from being in an accident either

      Now you’ve learnt 2 new things today!

  13. At last it seems like the Cayman people are starting to waken up . End all restrictions now Mr Paton . Especially those useless and annoying masks.

    • Sheriff says:

      Come on now, those masks work so well, particularly for all those people wearing them below their nose.

    • Anonymous says:

      And place vulnerable people with preexisting conditions in harm’s way.

    • Anonymous says:

      Those “useless and annoying” masks have been used in Asian countries for years with great success. With the virus continuing to mutate and adapt to vaccines, it’s a minor inconvenience to protect yourself and those around you.

  14. Anonymous says:

    It’s time to begin considering moving Cayman to phase 5. This virus is now impossible to control. Authorities should just admit the vaccine, masks and other suppression methods are not going to stop this virus from spreading and infecting most of the island.

    Nearly everyone here is fully vaccinated. A new study from CDC of over 1.2M vaccinated people showed a grand total of 36 people who died from Covid. Time to end the fear porn and actually follow the science. Yes, you’ll get covid and no, it won’t kill you.

    Here’s whats happening:

    -1.5M new cases in US PER DAY! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10389341/US-smashes-COVID-record-1-486M-new-cases-recorded-Monday-just-1-906-new-deaths.html

    – Expected half of Europe will become infected in the coming weeks even with suppression and restrictions https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/01/11/world/who-omicron-spread-europe/

    Do you really think the mask most of you aren’t even wearing correctly will protect you? Trying to contain this virus is akin to trying to kick water uphill…

  15. Say it like it is. says:

    After 10,500 cases in the last 4 months(and likely many more so far undetected) we have only 7 people admitted to hospital and nearly all the 12 deaths were due to serious comorbidities on admission. I would imagine these numbers are less than we get in a bad flu season.

    • Anonymous says:

      12 deaths? That number should have increased since the beginning of the year (2022).
      The HSA-Public Health Department need to do a better job at releasing timely & accurate stats.

      • Anonymous says:

        One more dead today. Hope all the “it’s just a cold” people are happy.

        • Anonymous says:

          You spoke too soon. It’s actually no two (2) deaths in last 24 hours. Media reports: Unvaccinated & due to COVID causes.

          GET FULLY VACCINATED & BOOSTED WHENEVER IT IS YOUR TIME. ALSO, ADHERE TO THE PUBLUC HEALTH SAFETY GUIDELINES WHEN HANDLING ITEMS (i.e. frequently sanitize & wash your hands) & WHEN OUT IN PUBLIC (i.e. wear your N95 mask, 6ft social distant, maintain small familiar social gatherings preferably with fully vaccinated people).

    • Anonymous says:

      “Cayman has now recorded a total of 11,226 cases of the virus since March 2020 but around 10,500 were in the last four months.”
      This such bullish!t.
      So, Cayman is only now realizing astonishingly high numbers of COVID-19 positives (on record) in the last 4 months, despite all the pre-September 2021 lockdowns, mandatory isolations & contact tracing that required Public Health COVID-19/PCR Testing?
      What was Public Health/Dr. Lee doing pre-September 2021 to test, record, & report ACCURATE figures to the public, that he could only report ~1000 positive cases? NO SAH!!!!

    • Anonymous says:

      Recognizance of PH/Dr.Lee’s Achievenements, with regards to recorded & reported COVID-19 Positive Cases (Totalling 11,226):

      •March 2020-Aug.2022 (18 months) = 726 positive cases reported*

      •Sept. 2021-Today (4 months) = 10,500 positive cases reported

      *Why is this figure so low?

    • Anonymous says:

      Those who died from COVID with “underlying conditions” still suffered a preventable death and deserved to live too.

  16. Anonymous says:

    0.01% of the population in hospital with Covid, even less because of Covid.

    • Anonymous says:

      Covid denier bot has entered the chat

    • Anonymous says:

      From a paramedic in Virginia, United States:

      On my last shift, an ambulance waited five hours with their patient outside the ER, with other ambulances stacking up behind it, before the hospital announced they were closed and told them to leave. PSA: be careful out there. The safety net you had is shredded and mostly gone.

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