Over 36% of population now vaccinated
(CNS): Healthcare professionals worked flat out on Saturday, when, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee, 1,761 COVID-19 vaccinations were administered, the largest number in a single day since the national programme was rolled out. So far, 23,866 people, or 36.7% of the estimated population, have received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while 11,153 have now completed the two-dose course. But despite the ongoing success of the vaccine, which is now open to all, travellers are still arriving with the virus. Over the weekend another six people tested positive on arrival into Cayman.
These people are among 35 active cases of the coronavirus, and five people are showing symptoms. There are now 730 travellers in home isolation or government quarantine.
Government has now gazetted the latest COVI-19 control regulations that will pave the way for travellers who are negative on arrival and have been vaccinated against the virus to quarantine or isolate for just ten days rather than 14 from Monday, 22 March.
Category: Health, Medical Health
There’s no vaccine for children. It’s being trialled to see if it benefits children with certain health conditions but that’s it. There are NO plans to roll it out in the UK or license it for general use for children.
Not me!
Congrats to the hard working healthcare heroes at the airport. I was there on Saturday and they were pushing people through like a well oiled machine. Special shout out to nurse John!
Some percentage of vaccinated people can still contract and transmit Sars-CoV-2. That percentage is probably less than 10%. The incubation period for Sars-CoV-2 is up to 14 days. A small percentage of people infected with Sars-CoV-2 do not produce a positive PCR test until more than 10 days after infection. It only takes 1 infectious person being released into the community after 10 days quarantine to cause an outbreak. QED
Fear monger……Look at the study of 42K people that have the same vaccine we are using your 10% is more like 0.5%
Do you think the Measles vaccine is 100%? Its not!
To be fair the consequences of one infected person entering a community where 80% of people are vaccinated – even if you are right and it only prevents infection in 90% of the people they meet – in terms of speed of spread are massively different. It’s simple math. As are the consequences for those who have been vaccinated in terms of severity of illness. You have a point in that once quarantine is removed there will be community infection but the scale and severity are radically different, and what’s the alternative? Keeping the borders closed forever?
Given inbound travellers have to quarantine until negative, the number of positives are largely irrelevant – save other than to provide fear to the ill-educated and doom-mongers on island.
Not irrelevent but needs to be taken in context which as you say creates fear for the ill-informed
Not completely irrelevant. These inbound positives are thankfully not all symptomatic, and we should remain mindful of our limited hospital ICU capacity. Conditioned skeptics might mention that the integrity of our quarantine protocols have already been foiled multiple times. We only have to get it really wrong once, to regress back to the rest-of-the-world circumstances. It is unsettling that the only thing standing in the way of new variants, and resumption of public transmission, is highly varying levels of personal honour. But happily so far, so good.
So limited ICU we are taking down the Covid 19 hospital tent!
But, the Family Life Centre were not oxygenated ICU beds, more like a waiting room/last rights bunker for 60. Hopefully we won’t later regret packing it all up. HSA/Faith/Chrissy have maybe a dozen oxygen-piped beds, and Health City has a HVAC oxygenated room that can shoe-horn another 25 or so in there. Total COVID serious case capacity remains around 50, displaced by normal hospital occupancy. We are currently averaging around 35 or so imported and mostly mild cases. We just have to hope imported cases stay within our limited O2-ICU bed capacity with 100% containment. Again, so far, so good.
But it’s far from irrelevant in the context of the Premier wanting to reopen the borders and dispense with quarantine once the percentage reaches his target. Passing lightly over the fact that no one really knows how many people are here and what the true percentage is, we have direct evidence that even with the pre flight PCR test approximately 5 people a week come in who are infected and would be moving in the community if it were not for quarantine. And that’s in existing volumes – which will multiply massively once quarantine restrictions are lifted.
You are missing the point ONLY fully vaccinated people would be able to bypass the quarantine so yes we may have 5 people a week but no doubt they will be the unvaccinated ones in quarantine still.
Everyone has the opportunity to get the vaccine. Get it (or don’t) and don’t worry about others.
“But despite the ongoing success of the vaccine, which is now open to all, travellers are still arriving with the virus.”
Why is this comment relevant to our vaccine program? They are people arriving from another country. Is it just to keep people scared?
My thought exactly. Poorly formed sentence. Arriving passengers are related to vaccine programs elsewhere. Not our vaccine program.
It means that despite a worldwide roll out of the vaccine, there are people still not getting vaccinated and coming here positive despite testing negative days before. It implies the continued prevalence of the virus.
Just my take on it.
The people coming here probably have not had the option to get vaccinated yet. My guess this moment was the media’s attempt to keep everyone scared.
PCR tests are highly reliable when used properly.
HSA should be analyzing where those that test positive had previously tested negative. Is there a trend from a certain country or certain lab? If so, remove them from list of authorized test facilities.
Truth be told, most travelers that test positive on arriving here probably DON’T have the virus. HSA runs those tests to the max and pick up things that aren’t even Covid19. Remember the school child? False positives. Without these ongoing “positives”, Alden would have less leverage to keep the borders closed. Pretty sure he’s got a specific date in his head to reopen to look heroic.
Time to start having a proper conversation about what is going to happen in the next few days when it becomes clear that Cayman won’t hit this arbitrary figure of 80% of the adult and child population being vaccinated. Given that we’ve not even hit half of that number despite the vaccine being made available to every healthcare professional, their other halves, everyone vulnerable, everyone over 60 and everyone with a surname in the first half of the alphabet (which contains all the popular Caymanian surnames), it’s clear that it’s not going to happen, even if a child vaccine is developed and introduced by the summer (none of my kids will be having it).
Clearly we cannot keep the border closed with at least ten days of quarantine indefinitely. So what happens next?
I’ve still heard no reasonable argument against offering the vaccine to anyone who wants it and then reopening the border with zero restrictions whatsoever. Anyone who is worried about covid can have the shot. Anyone who isn’t worried about covid can make a decision not to. If, at some point, it looks like covid becomes something that affects young, healthy people then I’ll give some consideration to getting a jab. If, at some point, anywhere I want to travel introduces a rule that says you need to be vaccinated to immigrate then I’ll give some consideration to getting a jab. Until either of those things is true (the latter looks most likely but I’m prepared to wait until those rules are actually announced), then I’m content to sit out the vaccine knowing that the risk of me catching and getting ill from covid is tiny.
Pastor Alfredo
What a covidiot.
I am assuming by signing Pastor Alfredo this is to encourage people of your religion not to get vaccinated?
That bit above where I wrote “I’ve still heard no reasonable argument…”? Yep, I’m talking to you.
Calling someone a covidiot is the sort of thing that people do when they have no logical or reasonable response. I’ll happily debate anyone on any of this if they want to have a reasonable debate about it but no one appears to want to do that. The moment I start making an objectively sensible point or setting out my position using generally accepted principles like statistics, relative risk, economics or something as basic as common sense I sit here and wait for a worthwhile response…
…and wait…
…and wait…
…here it comes…
“You’re a covidiot!”
You’d have more reasoned debate with an eight year old.
In and of itself this wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem. Unreasonable and emotionally unstable people can be easily ignored. But in the instance of Corona virus it appears that people with the power to make decisions about whether I can get on a plane and spend Christmas or Easter with my family are pandering to a gallery packed with people who wouldn’t understand a statistic if it hit them in the face.
Everything is cool as long as the monthly government free money keeps rolling in.
Pastor Alfredo
“Everything is cool as long as the free money from my sheep keeps rolling into my tithe bucket.”
Fixed your sentence for ya, Pasta Alfredo.
Hahahaha, don’t make me laugh. Talking about free government money coming rolling in. As a Pastor, how do you make money? Oh yeah, free money coming rolling in from conning the weak and vulnerable in our society with fairy stories and threats of damnation. Get a proper job.
Is he a real pastor or just a pasta alfredo….
Or…Pasta Alfredo has played you like a fiddle.
YUP, keep um stupid
You think he is a real pastor? You didn’t notice that his name is pronounced the same way as the pasta dish? And there is no mention of religion is his post at all. Whose the idiot I wonder.
Perhaps it should be a requirement for all work permit holders that the COVID is as required as an HIV test or a chest xray. They still test for Syphilis as a communicable disease which COVID is as well. It should stated clearly that all work permit renewals will require the vaccination or even to amend the requirements because of the pandemic to give a reasonable amount of time say 30 to 60 days to have proof of vaccination or the work permit will not be renewed or even cancelled. The choice for those individuals is to leave or get vaccinated with no option
I think this should be looked at further. Only because if they do get seriously sick guess what is one of the effects – increased health insurance costs for everyone.
I agree that the border should be opened once everyone has had the opportunity to get the vaccine have done.
Unfortunately there are many people like you who don’t think they need the vaccine because they are unlikely to get seriously ill. That may be true, but if you allow yourself to get the virus and spread it, chances are you give it to someone who also thinks they don’t need it, and they may die from it or have serious effects.
I understand your skepticism but your lack of concern for your fellow humans is disappointing. By eliminating, or even reducing the possibility of you spreading the virus to others you are helping. It’s this kind of attitude all over the world that has made things much worse than they needed to be and increases the opportunity for the virus to stick around, mutate, and render the vaccines ineffective.
What a narrow way to look at the world – if *I* can’t travel, if *I* can’t get too sick. What does your religion teach you about this kind of behaviour? Consider that there are many people in the world who will have to wait years to have the privilege of receiving the vaccine that you are so cavalier about.
To return to your question. The reality is that, barring any substantial change to the efficacy of the vaccine against the strains out there, the quarantine should be eliminated probably by May (but I’d guess June). If they try to keep it beyond I think the grounds for doing so will be shaky. By then everyone who wants a vaccine will have received both doses.
Keep it going Pastor, Sometimes logic takes a while to sink in. If you don’t fear the virus, there’s no incentive to get a vaccine. It offers no greater protection to others if I am vaccinated and the current government benchmark isn’t realistic. I’ll get the vaccine when the government starts using a sane benchmark and only for travel purposes. And even then I would only get it to satisfy the travel requirement, not because the underlying logic makes sense given that the vaccine seems to only represent personal protection.
Enough of the ignorance! It does offer protection to others! The data now clearly shows the vaccines are effective at both preventing illness AND preventing transmission from those who still catch it. Educate yourself !
Shouldn’t the “others” be vaccinated and thereby render any risk I would pose to them so miniscule that it would not even be comparable to the common flu which is something we have lived with forever? Try again, but this time use a little critical thinking, it also won’t kill you.
Idiot. It offers protection to others by reducing your risk of infection. If you’re not infected you’re not going to give it to others and kill them.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3790399
Anyone who cares sufficiently about not catching covid can have the vaccine.
You’re essentially advocating for me, and anyone else who doesn’t want to have a rushed, untested, vaccine that’s cloaked with caveats and indemnification for their manufacturers to just shut up and take it, just in case it might affect you. And you want my kids to subject themselves to it as well, just in case it might affect you.
This isn’t ebola or smallpox. There isn’t an emergency. The tiny minority of the population that might have been adversely affected has been vaccinated. That’s literally job done.
Pastor Alfredo
Saturday inbound was from Miami KX3103.
On what basis are they estimating the current population of the Cayman Islands exactly?
They take the actual number, and then arbitrarily deduct an arbitrary number. In exchange for millions of dollars, of course.
LOL
I wish it were funny. It is actually scary as shit that a well funded government has no clue how many people are actually here. There is no legitimate excuse. And as usual, no accountability.
Actually, they ADD an arbitrary number, sometimes for a lot less! Election Specials going on now!!
98.87% of statistics are completely made up.