8 travellers test positive for COVID-19 over weekend
(CNS: Eight new cases of COVID-19 have been added to the local tally following 503 COVID-19 more tests carried out over the weekend. Two of these travellers who have the coronavirus are symptomatic. There are now 26 active cases of the virus in Cayman, with four of those patients showing symptoms, though none are in the hospital.
Officials were not able to confirm the exact number of people currently in quarantine or home isolation information was missing from one facility on Monday evening, but the number is estimated to be over 900.
Meanwhile, as the flu season returns, the HSA will open the Flu Clinic on Tuesday at the hospital in George Town. The dedicated clinic is in the area previously occupied by the Physiotherapy Department.
“Although flu cases are currently low, opening the dedicated clinic allows patients with flu symptoms to be separate from other patients attending general clinics,” said Medical Officer of Health Dr Samuel Williams-Rodriguez.
“It is important that we continue to implement ways to keep our vulnerable and elderly safe. We usually start to see the rise of flu cases in September, however with persons following COVID-19 safety protocols, wearing face masks, practicing better hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette, we are seeing lower numbers of flu cases so far this year,” he said, noting that lower overseas travel was also a factor in the drop in cases.
The Health Services Authority has already administered 4,000 doses of flu vaccine over the past four weeks and an additional 2,000 vaccinations have been ordered.
Anyone with flu symptoms is advised to first contact the 24 hour Flu Hotline to speak to a health professional about their symptoms before visiting the clinic.
Contact 1-800-534-8600, (345) 947-3077 or flu@hsa.ky.
Category: Health, Medical Health
I quote our Dear Leader’s speech “If this doesn’t work i will close it down right away” Wha happen Alden??? or is as we thought you have to consult with Mr Covid 19’s spread expert and enabler Moses in my safe Brac Bubble kirkonnell!How Sad for these islands waiting for the lick anytime now!
Didnt Govt advise last week that there were 3 other breaches being investigated? Even if jetski breacher was one of them, where is the update on the other two? Or are they in Mexico with the rest of the “lost” people?
Not another word said on those other cases. Suspicious if you ask me.
There’s lot more happening than we hear about. It won’t be long now.
So when is this jetski woman going to be re-tested and have any of the people she has been in contact with, put into quarantine?
Who was she quarantining with? Are they in the govt facility as well?
Does jetski woman live here or was she just visiting her boyfriend? I thought visitors were supposed to be close family only?
Visiting! Who the hell gave a tourist permission to visit? Fire them.
She is from Georgia, her only “tie” here was so support her boyfriend in that CIWA race.
I wonder what is the result of a government meeting (if they so any):
– what plan should we present?
– we don’t know what to do!
– we need to present anything to the population.
– but we don’t know what to do!!!!
– ok, let’s just stay quiet and pretend we don’t give a f
The waiting area for testing is spread out (South Sound Community Centre) with social distancing throughout the process. It is perfectly safe. You have been misinformed.
Unless those waiting do so outdoors, it is not “perfectly safe.”
More than 6 ft apart, everyone wearing face masks, all surfaces sanitised between use, and minimal time in the room. Damn sight safer than the aircraft environment we flew in on.
Yes. But not safe.
Travel Cayman or whichever organization is responsible for vetting and approving arrival applications is deficient in its function. The two Canadians who breached self isolation were visiting for only 2 weeks – the entire period of their quarantine. Clearly the Travel Cayman processors failed to catch that obvious time-line. Did anyone really believe they would stay isolated for their entire visit? The young lady jet ski fan was visiting just to attend a frivolous event. Did anyone think she would be diligent to stay isolated when that was the sole purpose of her visit?
Travel Cayman is failing in its vetting! Also, why does it keep allowing increasing arrival numbers which are logistically harder to monitor and manage? Is this program being run by Eric Bush?? No wonder!!
So true. They should not have been given permission to arrive. Thought it was suppose to be restricted to residents and citizens.
CNS please ask if people are being allowed to travel to Miami and return a few days later on KX. If they are this system is doomed to failure when people got Xmas shopping!
They are. However, all flights are sold out until February so…
Its not a prison Island! Of course you are able to travel to MIA and back if you are a resident. Thats if you can get a flight!
It isn’t? That’s news to me.
And your needless shopping trips, in the middle of a pandemic, are depriving people who NEED to travel, an opportunity to do so. You have taken seats from medical patients , and will deprive families of Christmas together, so you can exercise your self entitled liberty ill suited to the current circumstances. You are also wasting expensive (and increasingly limited) government resources. You must be so proud.
Well put in more flights than!
It’s not like Cayman Airways does not need more money.
Employ more people to monitor and charge a landing / Covid fee.
There is a way to do this but CIG just does not want to slow it!
More flights arent needed. CIG needs to only allow ESSENTIAL travel. They are not even asking much less getting any kind of proof for reason needed to travel.
I cant believe CIG isnt even asking locals the purpose of their trip. 90% of the people Ive heard of just went to do shopping (and yes I gave them a piece of my mind).
Do you all not realize that WE are ALL paying the tab in administrative fees, thousands of dollars in covid related costs, for you to go shopping??? How f***ing selfish are you? ESSENTIAL means ESSENTIAL, not to buy lingerie and toys!!!
Essential travel?
The operations of TravelTime (or whatever it’s called now) should never have been delegated and least of all to Cayman Airways! A company that can’t even manage themselves has been tasked with managing a critical program!!! What is Ebanks-Garcia’s role in oversight? Who expected this to work? Not me!
Government keeps claiming that travel is to be for “essential” reasons only and is limited to citizens/residents/work permit holders and the immediate family members of such groups. They claim the borders are not open to visitors. Lies. All of it.
The Canadian couple met criteria of property ownership but it should have been a HUGE red flag that their trip was less than the required quarantine period!!!!! Who approved that?
I highly doubt the “jet skier’s girlfriend” owns property. If her “professional jet skier” daddy does, she couldn’t stay with him anyway if he was racing as he’d have to quarantine too. If she was staying with the boyfriend then he (and anyone else in the property) was required to quarantine also. Charge the whole damn bunch 10K each.
Why would we believe anything Dr Lee says anymore?
How very true. No credibility whatsoever.
Amen!
I’m surprised, well not really, that he still has his job. He should have gone.
9.47am If Dr Lee should have gone, what on earth are your plans for the Minister of Health – send him to the moon on the next Chinese rocket?. At least he will be able to practice his Mandarin and preach to his fellow astronauts.
#freetheweed
How convenient, pressure is on to open up, let’s up the numbers of positives in response.
Look how many people returning have Covid! Look how many of them are sick! So far none. Look how many people they have caught this virus that most people can’t feel . So far none. The quarantine is working. It has not caused as much damage as shutting down the economy. But please continue to shut yourselves down and out of the world economy. There are many countries that would love to buy a used , cheap island in the future.
Last month of the year 1,000,000 cases in Florida. 18,000 deaths with Covid. Some perspective. No travel restrictions, no quarantine, Disney is open. In 2017 203,000 persons died in Florida.
I think you need to check your numbers!!!
You are correct. 999,000 cases. 18,596 deaths. 2017 203,353.
What numbers are you counting with? Or are you just objecting to suit your cause?
I do not know why people do not understand COVID-19 kills people. I know of at least 2 in the USA. They were healthy individuals with no major underlying conditions. These were my good friends who were front line workers and who took every precaution to be safe. They still got it and my heart bleeds to know that they are gone.
It will not take much to rid 70,ooo plus people to become infected and as we have a large older population, die from this virus that does not discriminate.
so the incompetence of the cayman authorities will put the health of the public and their freedoms at risk.’
i will not return to lockdown due to cig incompetence.
i hope cig has some good lawyers….
will keep asking:
how many positives are in home quarantine or government facilities?
who is monitoring visitors to home quarantiners?
we are putting trust in human nature that cannot be trusted….scary to think of the number of breaches that will involve young returning college kids in the coming weeks.
Remember the beaches issue when the college kids returned during lockdown? And the complete ban it triggered? Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
We need the Running Man solution. Neck braces linked to Block and Parcel, would suggest Suunto GPS tracker built in. When you breach your Block and Parcel, boom off with your head. That should stop these arrogant twat$ who think they’re above the law.
its not them leaving…its the people who are likely visiting them is the issue.
cayman is doomed with this nonsense system
It’s both, look at the incidents, and those are the ones we are aware of.
CNS – Can you please ask government about how testing is conducted at the end of the 14-day quarantine? I’ve heard from numerous sources that those who were quarantining are put in the same room while they wait to be tested. That is beyond stupid, but given the “world class” civil service in charge…
Having gone through it myself I can tell you.
You have to report to a designated testing place (they do not come to your home, but will provide transport if you need it). You have a specific appointment time, but you may have to wait for the test, which only takes a minute or so. You enter and leave through a one way route . All te testing staff and even the reception team wear full PPE and sanitise everything you touch. So its not perfect, but the potential for coming onto contact with others waiting to be tested is quite low – as long as the staff supervise the social distancing if there is a queue ( I had to wait for my test, but the next people to be tested waited about 12 feet away from me).
Its not as low risk as home testing would be, but I suspect way quicker – they have to try and clear an entire flights worth of people in a day, and the cross contamination risk looks low. The far bigger risks with the system are non compliance with the rules like breaching the quarantine itself, or the possibility that people may stray on their way to or from the test centre (since the monitoring centre expects them to be out of their home for the test anyway) – coupled with what appears to be a lack of active monitoring of the bracelets in the first place. During my 15 days in quarantine we did not get one visit or even one phone call to a landline that would have confirmed where we are, and after multiple false alarms in the first few days with the bracelets with nothing more than a cell phone call to ask if you were home – and usually hours – on one occasion over a day later – there is zero deterrent factor, and the whole system relies on peoples honesty and integrity.
The problem is not the system or even the hardware – its the obvious failure to follow up on monitoring to police it that is the problem. Nothing that some discipline and ass kicking at the control centre wouldn’t fix.
Thank you for sharing this!
Testing is definitely not lab-grade, or necessarily lab safe. At Holiday Inn, we were all instructed to hold our own sample tubes, even as any of us, after 14 days, might have been theoretical asymptomatic carriers. There was a common upholstered chair that everyone had to sit on, in their shorts, with skin swapping with each test. It was not being cleaned properly in between subjects. I had asked them if they might clean it, and they reluctantly sprayed a plume of something that was carried away on the breeze, and never touched the chair, or wiped. Oh well.
So why didn’t everyone catch Covid?
It’s random. Friend of mine had 2 home checks in the 2 weeks, I’ve had one so far.
All residents should be home by now. It is amazing how many are travelling to the USA for shopping. Lock it down.
Agreed. Necessary travel only! It is not that hard.
The problem is, what’s necessary for me is not necessary for you. Obviously not shopping, but when it comes to seeing children and parents there has to be some humanity.
Fine – but once a year – not every other month. Education and health excepted – people need to get to where they want to be AND STAY.
Give it a rest we have posted the answers so many times now!
How come your traveling to the US is necessary, but my coming to Cayman is not a necessity? It may not be to you, but it is to me. Fine- I will come just once a year…not every month.
We have to travel to the US for cancer treatment. You are traveling to Cayman for…?
Visiting loved ones…family and friends. And, yes some may be traveling for cancer treatments which are definitely essential, but there are many flying to Miami for shopping.
Essential travel?
Then pay for your own quarantine in the govt facility. If it’s not a medical reason for travel…..and I mean for treatment not available on island….the government should not be footing the bill in their facility or allowing their joke of a system for home quarantine.
The self isolation monitoring system has become a laughing stock in Cayman. It is likely that many have been wondering around outside their isolation properties – how many?, we will never know. What is certain, because we have proven examples, is how easy it is to abuse the system, and how few of these properties have been subjected to random on site inspection.Have any other countries utilised this bracelet system for quarantine?.
Hong Kong, I think.
No quarantine breachers are Caymanian. Are we going to allow visiting girlfriends to prevent Caymanians from seeing their families?
None that you know of but don’t get so high and mighty just yet. The girlfriend of the Caymanian who breached quarantine – where was she quarantining? Had she really not been interacting with her boyfriend prior to the jet ski event? Should he have been out in public? So many ways for this to all go wrong.
On what basis was she let in? Same with the dentist. Yes he seemed to own a condo, but to be allowed to come here for two weeks when quarantine is 15 days. Neither should have been allowed in!
Maybe we should consider only allowing Caymanians and returning residents to home quarantine. Insist that visitors stay in govt supervised facilities. No home quarantine for visitors.
8.11pm None of the identified breachers are Caymanian, but that does not mean no Caymanians are breaching the rules. The problem is none of them have been identified by the responsible authorities, only by members of the public.
So it’s guilty till proven innocent? Is that how you think society should be run?
I believe returning Caymanians and residents have more incentive to obey the rules. This is where they live. They presumably don’t want to spread the virus or cause another lockdown.
Visitors don’t necessarily have the Islands’ best interests at heart.
Let’s hope non of them game the laughable ineffective home quarantine system! This could get extremely ugly
It is a good system IF the rules are enforced and intentional breachers are imprisoned.
You do know it’s the Civil Service charged with its operation right?
Replace the current Civil Service with unemployed Caymanians from the hospitality industry.
There were Caymanians in the hospitality industry?
You mean the tour bus operators? Only them left in Tourism. You all chased out all the Caymanian chefs and front office managers from the hotels. Forget about finding Caymanian waiters.
You all? Chased? Where did they ALL go?
You All means the hotel owners and management teams.
Chased refers to the Caymanians who were intentionally deprived of opportunity and forced out of hotel tourism despite having operated the industry successfully for generations. Where did they all go? The Civil Service, financial services, retail, construction.
It’s Cayman Airways staff.
Ebanks-Garcia and Slocock do not work for Cayman Airways
It would be a good system if it was adequately supervised. The chances of a home check are remote to say the least.