Masks rules staying for two more months
(CNS): Government has confirmed that the mask mandate for everyone aged five and over in public buildings, schools, restaurants, bars, transport, including inbound flights to Cayman, and other indoor settings where social distancing cannot be maintained will be in effect for two more months.
Limits on outdoor gatherings have been scrapped and the indoor limit on the number of people has increased to 750. Changes to the Control and Management of COVID-19 Regulations came into effect on Friday, 29 April, and will last until 30 June.
Government did not hold a press briefing about the decision to retain the mask rules, despite the growing opposition to the mandate in schools and what some see as the illogical rules regarding when children must wear masks. Instead, government issued a press release in which Interim Chief Medical Officer Dr Autilia Newton urged the public to remain compliant with the mask-wearing requirements, as other restrictions continue to be eased.
“While we acknowledge that some countries have lifted mask-wearing requirements, we have to consider and assess the implications for protecting our population and healthcare system,” she said. “Mask-wearing is still required for indoor events where a distance of six feet cannot be constantly maintained, especially since we have noticed a recent increase in new cases over the last four weeks.”
Travellers, including cruise passengers and air arrivals, must also comply with mask-wearing requirements when in Cayman. Although restrictions on the number of ships and their passenger numbers allowed to call have been lifted, passengers and crew must be vaccinated and have a negative test prior to the start of their cruise.
Visitors flying in must be vaccinated and provide a negative test before arrival. They must also clear their arrival with Travel Cayman. While a number of US-based airlines have removed the requirement for passengers to wear masks on domestic flights, inbound flights to the Cayman Islands will still require passengers to wear masks during the flight.
Officials also reminded the owners and operators of restaurants and bars that servers and front-of-house staff are required to wear masks or cloth face coverings while serving customers.
As well as removing the outdoor gathering limits, people are no longer required to seek Cabinet’s permission for processions and parades, paving the way for the return of full carnivals. The removal of the public gathering limit for outdoor areas extends to boats and sporting events, though boats and venues must still continue to abide by their legal occupancy requirements.
There was no comment in the release from any ministers or the premier about the continued mask mandate.
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Category: Health, Medical Health
When will the tyranny of dealing with Travel Cayman stop?
The application for a travel declaration takes but minutes to complete & upload your HSA vaccination status , you get your certificate to travel. Despite which, it is beyond time people need to go through such measures just to fly in here. Maybe in 2024.
This is the masked idiot parade.
And unmasked Pantoon leading the clown show.
CIG, please consider making mask-wearing mandatory for all restaurant servers and front-line staff permanent!
Even during a flu outbreak that would be safer. Servers are always in close contact with patrons.
Your face, your choice.
It is like suggesting a marathon runner to do it wearing a face mask. Do you have an idea how many miles per shift a server walks? Let deprive them oxygen permanently you suggest.
The leadership of the Cayman Islands are not fit to lead. Hopefully that will change for the better soon.
It will. 2025 elections will be here soon. Times seems to go fast these days.
Who are you going to vote for?
The U.K.
Please, let’s end the clownshow
Not sure who is meant to enforce this. Every hotel and restaurant on the island, and other businesses have stopped caring and letting customers and guests walk in and about with no mask and no consequence.
Why should their be consequences for them, when non were done to Panton or Turner??
Masks are partly to blame for the increase in crime.
Citations needed.
Whoever the eff you are with all your ‘citations needed’ please stop as it’s bloody annoying.
I think you deserve a citation for your bad language
I wish you were half as good at physical gymnastics as mental. Cayman would be guaranteed Olympic gold for generations to come.
As the chairman of the United International Cockroach Federation, I strongly object to being compared to your worthless, useless, spineless, dubious politicians.
We cockroaches have our dignity you know.
So… just for funnzies, I did a little walk around George Town. We know PACT has decimated all the Cardinal Avenue businesses, with their idiotic road works. So, I choice to check out Fort Street. I visited 3 stores, all without a mask. No one even suggested that one was required. They really do not care. Then I went to a local store on Edwards street. And they insisted I wear a mask due to threatened fines from CIG. They did not seem to believe in masks, they only feared the fines. So no masks for rich people stores, only masks for us lowly Caymanians.
You all know we are 18 months behind the rest of the world managing this disease. So we all know mask mandates gonna be here for a long time yet. Unless you’re Sabrina then you don’t have to wear it, just chastise the rest of the population for spreading the disease 🙄
Lets all look at this one. Sanders and the Governor for an example, they got Covid, why? because they broke the rules and didn’t wear a mask.
No. The got it because the variant is highly contagious. Masks do next to nothing.
Look, that’s just not true. The right mask, worn in the right way, at the appropriate time reduces the risk of you catching Covid by around 50%.
I don’t like mask mandates but you simply cannot trust those who get Covid to follow the rules, i.e., isolate until they’re negative on a LFT. That’s the problem. . .socially irresponsible idiots who just refuse to play the game by the rules. In that case, mandates are necessary.
The folks running the show are either enjoying their power too much or not bright enough to see the obvious stupidity in these rules.
Either way, its’ totally unacceptable and things need to change very soon.
It’s no big deal to wear a face mask and wear it properly. Try to grow up and love thy neighbors as thy self.protect and be protected
How about you wear a hazmat suit. It’s not a big deal and that way your OCD doesn’t affect your neighbor and the children.
Why though? “We have to consider and assess the implications for protecting our population and healthcare system” is not an explanation, and the absence of reasoning or data speaks volumes. Covid is now endemic and will persist, so if this is not the time to lift the mask mandate and other restrictions when will be? Raw case numbers are not the issue. Restrictions were justified by saying it was stop health services being overwhelmed. But other countries have seen massive omicron waves and lifted their restrictions anyway, and none had hospital capacity issues. There are 6 people with covid in hospital, the hospitalisation numbers have stayed low and manageable. The vaccine and the omicron profile mean cases do not translate into hospitalisations and deaths anymore like they did in the past. And for those who want to wheel out ‘long covid’, covid is endemic, you ARE going to catch it sooner or later, probably sooner, so ‘long covid’ is not a reason to keep masks and all the other pointless regulations.
Such a joke! Can someone challenge this decision.
Just ignore them.
wtf…
Masks DON’T WORK. The ‘Science’ has proven this beyond any shadow of doubt.
For a face mask to be effective enough to stop a pathogen you would not be able to breath with it on.
Some studies have even shown that wearing a mask INCREASES the risk of COVID because a warm, humid surface is an ideal environment for the virus to multiply.
Places like Sweden & Florida where masks have been choice have actually some of the lowest Covid related statistics.
This is not taking into account the social and mental side-effects that are very real factors as well.
This should be a personal choice.
This is utter tripe. Masks are the single most effective public health step to reduce transmission rates. The point is that mere transmission rates no longer justify any public health steps.
Then why is China still locking down whilst wearing masks, and have done for years pre-pandemic.
I’ve had COVID twice and worn a mask when required as I have a compromised lung. The stupidity of walking into a bar with a mask, only to remove it whilst seated is the dumbest of all the dumb rules.
Because the base R number of Omicron is so high.
Masks reduce transmission rates by over 50% according to a study in the British Medical Journal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/wearing-masks-single-most-effective-way-to-tackle-covid-study-finds
My bologna has a first name it’s L-I-E-S. My bologna has a second name it’s P-A-C-T.
Citations needed.
Do you want 30-40 years worth of studies or just a recent one?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.04.22272833v1.full-text
Look at the link above, it is a far more effective meta analysis of the impact of public health steps generally rather than one about 10-12 year olds in Finland. Masks are pretty much a waste of time for younger kids for a mixture of compliance and physiological reasons, but they are they best public health measure for adult populations. Saying that, the reproduction rate of omicron and the low severity now for the vaccinated from omicron means there is little value to masks now. But a variant of alpha, beta or delta might require their use in the future.
Why not link to the actual meta study rather than the Guardians generous spin?
If you actually read the study you’ll see that it is critically confounded and subject to mostly a high or critical degree of bias according to the authors. In short, it’s garbage.
We can both find our own confirmation bias. Common sense will tell you they are essentially useless given the massive rise and fall of cases in areas where they were mandated throughout both the rise and fall. Or just look around you next time you go to the grocery store. Do you see effective mask wearing?
Not to mention many studies before mask politics that consistently showed them to be useless for respiratory viruses.
You’ve been had.
Please stop saying un-truths.
Citations needed
I flew in on an American carrier yesterday, no requirement for masks in flight, neither worn by cabin crew. How do they expect to enforce that one? Just said when landed that you must wear a mask in the airport. I think you will see mass quiet disobedience now, especially in social environments. You certainly don’t expect the RCIPS to enforce this, they have enough going on for now.
I think after Easter’s super-spreader week this is a sound decision. Clearly the public cannot control themselves to self-isolate when sick so the only way to slow the numbers is to keep the masks until the end of the school year.
Sad, because if people acted responsibly, we would not need to keep masking.
Wash your hands!!! Stay away from others if you feel unwell.
Touching doesn’t spread COVID, it’s an airborne pathogen that is inhaled.
Masks do not slow the spread because they don’t work. If they did, COVID would have been history last year, as it is it’s rampant because it’s vigorous transmissibility doesn’t acknowledge that you are a pious mask wearer.
Vaccination is the only protection from serious illness or death.
How many masks were worn at the shanty town camping communes?
Omg what a load of crap. If you feel that you are at risk, fine, wear a mask. If you are not at high risk your choice. This ridiculous, over reaching , baloney needs to stop.
Grow up. Wear a mask.
Why do we need to slow the numbers? This is endemic. You’re gonna get it. We no longer need to be concerned about running out of ventilators. Y’know, the whole reason we implemented restrictions in the first place.
Highly irresponsible government.
Un f*cking believable.
Why? The developed world abandoned raw case numbers as a metric to drive policy months and months ago.
Rotffl!! They have no clue. Cases have increased as many persons traveled over the Easter holiday and are now testing positive. Masks do not make a difference or at least not a significant difference and should be a personal choice, they are just depriving our lungs of oxygen.
Citations needed.
A real life sh#t show!!!!
How about a press conference, where journalists can actually press our elected members on this, with actual rational follow-up questions?
Because then they would have to explain why the mask mandate is still in place. And none of the statements so far have even come close to doing this. Covid is endemic and is here to stay.
Citations needed
There were never ever a single press conference in the CI
So what the CMO would have to believe is one of two things. Extending the mask mandate will bring us to the end of covid, or masks should be worn forever.
There are no other logical conclusions.
If more people would have spoken out much sooner and let these out of control politicians and bureaucrats know they better start tapping the brake pedal on their authority addiction we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now where we now see all pretenses of logic thrown right out the door in exchange for control.
Cayman…. Grow up. This is rediculous. We need a trucker protest.
Well, there are a bunch of lame -assed trucker babies driving around aimlessly in the States looking for a reason to exist. Please invite them down.
Right. A parade of low intelligence morons adding to congestion
The government keeps sending mixed messages. They are keeping the mask mandate when the reason for the increase in infections is directly linked to their own past decisions. The government needs to get its act together and decide what it wants.
Omg! What a bunch of hypocrites! I hope there is reincarnation, because all of these lying bull crap politicians will come back as Cockroaches. The deserve no less. Could they not screw us more if they tried? Do they not know that we are suffering from their idiot choices? That we don’t have endless free money like they do? People need to rally. This is so wrong. So, so wrong. But they will never pay the price that they foist upon us. They have no honor nor decency.
Can we require a test to see if our elected officials are able to recognize that a square peg will not fit into a round hole. We can source some from puzzles from the Baby Store. If that is not above their level.
Anonymous, it us only one of the things that makes Cayman Government and the people who vote them in look stupid. We visited for several weeks twice a year for over 40 years and we are now going elsewhere.
How can this be legal? I cannot do another two months of 9 hours per day with this bull. Fine for those that say you only have to wear it for your time in Foster’s. I have to wear it all freaking day! Fu Pact! There is no ‘science’ to support this. You are so done. You are dead to me. Fu and your over reaching crap.
Ultimately it should be my choice. End of story.
It’s my choice if I want to drive 70 through your kids school zone. End of story, amirite.
Oh please. There always has to be someone to try to debate with a perfectly ridiculous comparison. If you think masks are so great and protect you then by all means wear one, wear two for all I care. Allowing people to breathe fresh air is simply not comparable to wrecklessly driving through crowds of children. Children don’t even seem to get ‘sick’ from this illness so try and calm yourself down.
Wreckless would mean “without accident”, if
Agreed! I should be allowed to take conch and lobsters year round with no limits, burn rubbish with no penalties, and drive on the right side.
Stop the oppression! Ultimately its my choice
This is BS
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CAYMAN ISLANDS
PART I
BILL OF RIGHTS, FREEDOMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
5.—(1) No one shall be deprived by government of liberty and security of the person.
(2) The right to liberty does not extend to the following measures taken in relation to a person in
accordance with a procedure prescribed by law—
(g) for the purpose of preventing the spread of an infectious or contagious disease
First, vaccines were the key to freedom. Next it was hospitalizations and deaths decreasing. Now it’s simply cases. What does the Constitution mean if it’s interpretation is this broad? The flu or the common cold now are reasons to limit liberty through mask wearing. Today, five people are estimated hospitalized with COVID out of nearly 70,000 and 88% of the population are fully vaccinated. Even after years of mask wearing, little seems to have actually prevented COVID except the vaccine by lessening its severity. This extension is unconstitutional as randomly selecting dates or periods of time without even the most casual scientific link to societal risk/benefit is a deprivation of liberty. This should be taken before the courts immediately so the power of government and the Constitutional intent of the people can find balance.
Just don’t wear a mask-the best way to address government overreach is mass non-compliance.
And to show us who is a dummy.
And a great way to display how big a baby you are.
You probably work at an office, where you don’t have to wear a mask. Because PACT ‘science’ says Covid doesn’t spread if you are white and sit at a desk. You probably do not have to wear a mask all f-ing day, like I do. You probably are a Chad who thinks it is fine to require others to suffer whilst you socialize free from restrictions that are not hurting you or your bottom line. I pray for reincarnation.
Don’t bring race into this 6:37. Stupidity and corruption comes in all colors, shapes and sizes.
If your prism for life is race-based, you are a loser.
As ably led by the examples set by the Health Minister and Premier.
Or…. grow up and wear one.
No. But then you are being a dick to all of us In retail who are just doing our jobs. It is not our fault that Government are morons. We are the people facing the brunt of this, and we are against mandates. No, take it up with those idiots in power who are the problem. Don’t be mask-holes to those who have no say.
Masses should turn out to have a Massive Mask Burning Event
Did smokers cry about their human rights being taken away when smoking was banned on planes and public places?
Ummm… yes… they did.
Correct, and yet they follow the law like any sane person would who lives along other people in a society.
They are never, ever 20ft away from any building. Try hush.
Hmmm can these rules get any crazier?
Hypothetically speaking: I’m flying from DFW to Grand Cayman. The first leg of my flight is from DFW to MIA, on this flight I do not need to wear a mask. At the airport, in MIA I do not need to wear a mask but when I get on the flight from MIA to GCM I’m required to wear a mask. How is this helpful? When you factor in the wait time at DFW to board the flight, and the layover in MIA I’ve spent 7-8 hours hanging out with a bunch of people indoors and on a plane without a mask but putting my mask on when I make the 1.5 hour flight from MIA to GCM is somehow going to prevent COVID from making it’s way to Cayman? But our kids have to keep their masks on or else. Grrrrrrr
Now let’s once again talk about the different requirements for cruise passengers vs residents or visitors arriving by air. Cruise passengers are not required to apply to Travel Cayman, they are not required to have a negative COVID test one day before disembarking from the ship, yet air passengers must get permission to travel and must be tested one day before they set foot off their flight. I will NEVER understand or accept that this practice is acceptable. The rules should be the same for air arrivals and cruise arrivals. Figure it out PACT! Stop treating the visitors who spend the most money like second-class citizens while allowing unlimited cruise ships to arrive with thousands of people crowding the streets spending little money (without masks.)
As for masks – there is no reason to continue the mask mandate unless everyone is required to wear a proper fitting KN95 or N95 mask. Cloth masks that have not been washed in days or weeks or months (ewwww) are basically worthless. Surgical masks might help a little but not if they are worn below the nose. And we have a health minister that doesn’t follow the policy and then apologizes for her mistake. Give me a break.
And don’t get me started on how unfair it is to force families with kids ages 12 and over to have their kids fully vaccinated before they can visit without quarantine. I support the COVID vaccine, I believe it helps but I do not support forcing parents to vaccinate their 12-17 year old kids. This rule alone continues to keep Cayman closed to many families wishing to vacation here. Until this rule is dropped tourism will never return to normal.
OK rant over
No lie! This is all just lies, and posturing. Idiots running the country. So completely moronic, and self serving. Donkeys the lot.
That’s why there was no press conference. There is no logical answers to the questions they would be asked
Dont apologize for this rant. It is good!
I have to wear my worn out blue mask for 11 seconds while walking up the stairs at Kings Gym, when I am nowhere near another human being, just to take it off when I walk into the packed gym, with maybe 100 plus heavily breathing people…. And after spending a whole day in my accounting firm office with over 250 people not wearing a mask. Oh, and spent part of this week attending the GAIM conference at the Ritz plus evening social events with 500 plus people, with not a mask in sight.
Yup. “Science”. Or complete incompetence.
Just 11.0 seconds. . .11.0 seconds.. Just get on with it. The mask mandate will be over soon.
Travel to Cayman from London on BA you require the ridiculous Travel Cayman authorisation letter that can only be granted after signing the required declaration. You must declare whether you are vaccinated or not, accepting quarantine if not. You must also declare Covid coverage on travel insurance, take an LFT within 24 hours of travel, and then declare all of this prior to being allowed to board the aircraft.
So, in effect you have been authorised and made all required declarations, and the CBC know all of this before the plane lands.
So why the heck do you then have to produce all this stupid documentation when you arrive in Cayman, because you can’t get on the damn aircraft without it?
Then, to compound the stupidity, you have to wear a face mask for 12 hours at the direction of Cayman authorities even though the entire plane has been tested and it’s a British, not Cayman airline.
And just to rub salt in a very open wound, you are greeted by ignorance and rudeness by CBC employees who wouldn’t get a job as a crossing attendant in the real world.
Oh, but on return to the U.K., none of the above applies.
Caymankind my ******
This! 💯!
Bureaucracy run amok. Reduce CIG by 75%. Just give the revenue directly to the citizens of the Cayman Islands and bypass the middle men.
Also, most passengers on those flights are disembarking at Nassau where there’s no vaccination requirement and only a 72 hour test. Do they breathe different air on the plane?
Makes us look uneducated and just plain stupid.
#SelfOwned
That’s what you get when you allow a Marl Road government to take power.
Facts! Was a recipe for disaster from the jump! Hilarious actually 🤣
Hate to break it to you, but masks arent to blame for that.