Cayman stuck at UK’s amber light
(CNS): The Cayman Islands has been left on the amber list in the UK’s travel traffic light rating system, implying that people from the UK should only be traveling here in the case of emergency, even though there has not been a case of community transmission of COVID-19 in Cayman for over a year and 60% of the population is full vaccinated. Anyone going to Britain from Cayman will still be required to isolate on arrival for ten days and produce a negative test on days two and eight before being released, unless they pay for the ‘test to release’ scheme after five days.
In in a press release issued by his office today, Governor Martyn Roper said he was “very disappointed that Cayman, along with all Overseas Territories in the region” was still on the amber list and described it as a political decision.
“With an increase in Covid cases in the UK due to the Delta variant (also known as Indian variant), the UK took the political decision that it did not want to add any countries or territories to the green list at this review point. Portugal was removed from the green list. Several countries were added to the red list,” he said. “Over the last three weeks, my office has provided lots of information to the UK Department of Transport on Cayman’s Covid policies, vaccine uptake and our recently acquired capacity to undertake genomic sequencing used to detect variants of concern.”
The governor said he had personally raised this at senior levels in the UK, and the premier had written to UK ministers.
“We have set out a compelling case as to why Cayman should be green,” Roper said. “I recognise it is hard to understand why we are not green. I very much hope that happens at the next review in three weeks and we will continue to urge that outcome. As we have now started to demonstrate our genomic sequencing capability, that strengthens our case even more. This decision by the UK reflects great caution about international travel and the extremely difficult challenge the UK faces in managing the risks from Covid. It is no reflection whatsoever on Cayman’s outstanding Covid response.”
UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said that with this “difficult but decisive action” he hoped this safety first approach would enable much more opening up of the travel sector in a few weeks. He said the first thing to do was to protect the UK’s own “domestic unlock”.
During press appearances on British TV stations Thursday, Shapps said people should only go to countries on the amber list in “exceptional circumstances”, as he asked for patience.
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Tit for Tac
Live with it we have to follow the rules of the countries. If we don’t like them don’t travel there.
I for one will never go back to England again, i didn’t see anything there that i like and didn’t leave anything to go back for. Just a bunch of stuck up people that thinks that they better than us. When Cayman was poor, they would not even look this way. Now its something that they can get from here its different. Later we will see if the Vaccine is really free.
yeah lets have a massive street parade where people will be damn near naked, drunk as can be, whining up on each other, sweating, etc… all for what? so some obscure company “caymas” they call it… can make profit while the rest of the country had to be locked down for months, businesses had to close, churches had to close, etc…. come on man. this country continues to cut its nose to spite its face.
cancel the damn parade… better yet, do it permanently. gtfoh
Re “Cayman Stuck at UK Amber Light” -CNS article – thanks for this report and for the comment by the Governor that this is a “political decision”.
The article I am attaching (by Dr. John Lee ironically – another one) shows how “political” things have actually become worldwide. Are we not sure we have actually abandoned “follow the science”? I advise we study this article carefully.
“Dr. John Lee – critiquing the covid-19 thought and management processes”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=btWfAXQ8wYg&fbclid=IwAR3Jv-wYORgfBs91BQMtdyyVSGDBVNdBENgIPPdxUsh8OP2_mP33elnIhwQ
UK cases starting to increase again. This is why the UK is jittery.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15166412/covid-cases-rise-a-week-fears-june/
Deaths and hospitalisations is the key metric though – UK still on 30 year olds for vaccine. People here don’t know how lucky they are to have been offered a Pfizer jab in Cayman at age 18 before a 50 year old could get one in UK, let alone the rest of the world. The UK cases are spiralling because the Indian variant is 60% more transmissible and it is rife amongst school kids and teenagers. But it is protected by vaccines and hopefully deaths don’t spiral.
And they are afraid of diseased Jamaicans using Cayman as a conduit to UK.
Hope this changes soon. I really don’t see the logic in this if we are effectively covid free and no real threat to our MOTHER COUNTRY! Could understand if we still had a major or moderate covid spread, but we have been for the most part COVID FREE.
Not sure How anyone in Cayman can criticize the UK Government. At least they are making some decisions
The hypocracy of Panton is unbelievable the only decision the PACT government has made is which office they are getting in the Government building.
Their silence of deafening ?
Make a decision open the boarders reduce the quarantine ?
DO SOMETHING !!!
Now we seeing some changes. Didn’t like the amber, did we? More flights. More vaccines. Vaccines for children. Now, open the borders w/out quarantine.
Or how to blow the huge first month salary on a custom made ring. What a bunch of jokers.
Probably Amber because of the 10/ 14 day quanrantine here in Cayman. Why would we expect different not reciprocate?
Great piece on this by John Harris
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-won-t-boris-put-the-cayman-islands-on-the-covid-green-list-
It’s not great at all, it’s just a whinging letter which presents Cayman’s vaccination program as though it was something the U.K. had nothing to do with. A bit of gratitude towards those who actually pay the taxes to fund this would be nice!
Ah, so gratitude means we should ignore the lack of logic or rationality behind the decision.?
I don’t think it was a great piece either, I was expecting a proper dissertation, but your criticisms are misplaced. The point of the piece was: why aren’t we on the green list? What does the fact that the UK provided the vaccines have to do with that? Some of the many links between Cayman and the UK were covered by John. If anything, one could ask why the UK spent all that taxpayer money on helping Cayman be COVID-free and well-vaccinated, only to close itself off from us and vice versa (because realistically, a long quarantine amounts to the same thing). Also, if you don’t think we could have paid for vaccines ourselves even if the UK supplied them, you aren’t paying attention. Who got the test kits that allowed us to know what the hell was even going on here in the first place? We did. The UK decided to commit to providing vaccines to OTs – we didn’t go cap in hand asking for them. So your request for gratitude, not for the UK, but for yourself, is just nonsense – assuming you even pay UK taxes. We would have figured our own situation out – as we did for over 200 years before the UK decided to send a Commissioner over.
Exactly! Like since the vaccines come from England we should either bow down or bend over and cease to look after our own…
News out of Europe this morning is that the UK has approved the Pfizer vaccine for those 12+. That should allow much greater uptake here.
Approved but it’s going to take a long time – we are still vaccinating people in their 30s here.
They can do both at once you know.
No they can’t, because the vaccines are being administered by age group and vulnerability, and children have the least need of it. That’s how healthcare works in the UK.
Also it’s got to go before the Joint Vaccines committee for further approval before a final decision is made.
Here, as in: the Cayman Islands, where there is no wait for anyone.
PPM saved us continue their policy Keep Cayman safe. PCR test all arriving travellers local or overseas and Quarantine all carriers of Covid 19 ! UK is doing the right thing and so should we ! Green light Amber light or Red light is Pure Foolishness during a pandemic that killed so many people! Just those mere realities should tell all you get back to normal dingbats that this is the new normal and it’s never going to be the way it was .Stop deluding and start improving the way we live.
Really? “so many deaths”.
In a country like the US of A. which is 320 million. Wrap your head around that number.
how many deaths did they have due to covid, from the start to now, almost 2 years. 570k for covid.
how many to pnuemonia? 510K
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113051/number-reported-deaths-from-covid-pneumonia-and-flu-us/
If you can read and understand simple bar graphs. There is your accurate info.
so your scary covid has almost the same death rate as pnuemonia.
you are the sheeple these governments love. Not able to think for yourself, the obvious, with all the information at your finger tips.
This is why voting should be IQ based.
You realize that that suggests that you would lose your vote – assuming you have one.
easy to hurl the insult, harder to prove it. tell me. What am I wrong about?
You’re comparing COVID to pneumonia.
You realise the deaths attributed to COVID are in spite of a raft of measures to prevent the full severity of it. Internationally, if no measures had been implemented, the number of deaths and cases would have been higher, this overwhelming hospitals, this killing even more.
Idiot.
So he’s an idiot for comparing the death rates from 2 communicable, respiratory diseases, both of which are treatable? Your comment makes no sense, and that’s before you get into looking at the split between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
Except the current policy is not only PCR test all arrivals, but quarantine everyone, including people who are not carrying Covid and, if vaccinated, are highly unlikely to be carrying it. And even if they were, their chances of spreading it when they have been vaccinated and 70% of our population have been vaccinated are tiny. In exchange for which we give up our tourism industry and our personal freedom to travel without quarantine. With a risk management appetite like yours, I am surprised you go out the house. Your chances of getting killed on the roads are way higher.
Damn, just a few short months ago you all were saying you didnt need to leave paradise, and that the rest of the world especially the UK and US were infested with COVID. Now you want the freedom to travel to the UK because ????????…….you really think the UK owes you anything that hasnt been served on a plate to you over and over. Believe me, the average british, scottish or northern ireland citizen could care about this lil finance haven that serves a mere few.
So American democrats got the low IQ vote.
CNS: Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact
Lock her down keep freeloaders out Cayman their own EU friends have declared them virus variant hubs . Cayman has no such designation. Exactly who got this all wrong and caused people to loose their lives and suffer terrible lockdowns ??? How many Covid 19 waves have Cayman had??
Caymanians are the freeloaders, accepting vaccines paid for by U.K. taxes, and it’s “lose”, not “loose”.
How would you even get to the UK just now even if you were on the green list, with limited, over-subscribed BA flights and travel not possible via the US? It’s not an issue right now!
Travel is possible via the US. Just in one direction.
There are some really self-obsessed people here! The vast majority of the planet is on the red or amber list, it’s nothing personal towards the Cayman Islands. You’re not the only BOT.
4 of which are on the green list. Strangely enough, the 4 which have British military presence. Governor has missed a beat there – he should have invited in a British army training team for his pet regiment.
Are BA flights still stopping in Nassau on their way to and from cayman ?
NO!
Nope, direct.
9:38 pm
You are absolutely right.
This is Mother’s quiet way of going about protecting her “Trillion-Dollar Paradise”.
Thank you.
Why would we want UK tourists in Cayman? The UK has too many COVID cases and too many variants.
Mostly every plane load of people from the uk arriving on the BA flight have covid 19, even though they are all being “tested” before boarding flight
ermmm…”meanwhile, there were no cases of COVID-19 among today’s 464 test results. There are currently just nine active cases of the virus among the travellers in quarantine and isolation with no on suffering coronavirus symptoms.”
People – especially those who are vaccinated or with kids who are currently ineligible – are more bothered by the quarantine at the UK end.
It is more about going the other way. If Cayman is on the green list, people traveling from Cayman to the UK wouldn’t have to quarantine on arrival in the UK.
This has nothing to do with tourists coming to Cayman.
If U.K. taxpayers had any choice we wouldn’t be paying for your vaccines, know that!
This might come as a huge surprise to you, but most of us are British citizens and just as entitled to access to the vaccine as you are!
I bet you live here though lol
No one is green really, heathrows at 10 per cent of ore Covid numbers currently but queues are 6 hours long, e passport gates closed and social distancing with negative test checking, nightmare, from a Brit in cayman with PR who would love to go to England for August and see the family for first time in 2.5 years
I arrived at Heathrow in April from GCM.No queues at all and was through and outside the terminal in 35 mins! A record!
8:53 we hope you get to go to England and please stay there. Since you want to go so bad, just stay there forever.
Why are you such a bitter person? Cant you at least empathize with someone wanting to see their family? How embarrassing.
I know the UK is rightly concerned about the ‘Delta’ variant but as far as I know we have not had that variant. Perhaps it is the case that we do not currently test for it that is keeping us on the ‘amber’ list? We should be testing if we are not – From the Guardian today –
“People who have had the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have lower antibody levels targeting the coronavirus variant first discovered in India than those against previously circulating variants in the UK, new data suggests.
The research also suggests the levels of these antibodies are lower with increasing age and that levels decline over time, PA reports.
Researchers say this provides additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a vaccination boost to vulnerable people in the autumn.”
Reposting another users earlier comments on the other article. This needs to be reposted again and again,,, facts not conspiracy will hugest cayman safe from COVID and the borders open again.
I guess the bullet points need repeating over and over.
1. 99.7% of unvaccinated people survive covid 19
2. The Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective in preventing illness due to covid.
3. Taking 1 and 2 into account, vaccinated individuals risk of serious illness or death due to covid-19 is nearly ZERO.
4. If you are vaccinated and test positive for covid 19, again see 3.
5. Vaccinated individuals who have tested positive for covid are far less likely to infect others, but if they do, see 3.
6. The CDC recommends the Pfizer vaccine for all individuals over the age of 12 including pregnant women, individuals with autoimmune disease, elderly etc. The only exception noted is for those who have extreme allergic reactions to specific ingredients in the vaccine itself. This does not mean people who are generally allergic to various things. Polyethylene glycol is one cited ingredient.
7. The Pfizer vaccine is effective against variants.
8. The since vaccination programs have been widely implemented in the US and UK, infections and deaths have sharply plummeted demonstrating that the vaccine is highly effective.
keep posting this!
Yes!
Global isolation by a Colonial Master.
Self Inflicted.
Surely you mean CIG because the UK isn’t keeping us shut.
This is when you send a child to do an adult job.
Open the damn borders. IGNORE the maniac non-vaxxers. They’ve had their chance and voiced their nonsensical objections. Show the world that people vaccinated are welcome to spend money here and lets get moving again.
As someone with children under 16 I could care less about this. This whole thing is all a bunch of BS.
Its ‘Couldn’t care less ‘. If you Could, you haven’t hit your low level of not caring.
“could care less”
Selfish much? I’m not British and have no plans to go to the UK but hoped we’d be put on the green list for the sake of others flying there. I sure hope that you are teaching your young children to be more empathetic than you’re demonstrating here.
Mr. Panton. Such hypocrisy. Your statement today said how “unfair” it was for Cayman residents to have to quarantine for 10 days if travel to the UK. Meanwhile, UK residents, and in fact all residents of planet Earth, including fully vaccinated returning Cayman residents, have to quarantine for 10 or 14 days if travel to Cayman.
Whaaa??
Umm, they have Covid. We do not.
How is it hypocrisy? The risks are entire different. The UK has Covid active in the community. We do not. There is zero chance of someone from here being infected so there should be no reason to quarantine them when entering the UK. The other way around, not much, as the frequent positive test on people entering Cayman have shown.
I agree with you on the current Cayman quarantine arrangements (and I say this as a fully vaccinated Caymanian overseas and returning next week to quarantine) but I don’t think Wayne is being inconsistent here. Requiring travelers to Cayman to quarantine – when they have been off island in an environment in which covid is circulating – is different from requiring travelers to the UK to quarantine when they are traveling directly from Cayman, which is (essentially and in all practical respects) covid free and with a high vaccination rate.
But those places have Covid. Cayman doesn’t have community transmission of covid.
Gotta wonder what are they really mad at us about ??
Nothing to do with Cayman. The UK government doesn’t want anyone travelling full stop – to reduce the risk of importing infections but also to make people spend money at home this summer. They were taken by surprise when thousands of people booked foreign holidays anyway and have responded by making travel more and more difficult.
70%. Open the borders as promised.
They still won’t open the borders…
Could it be because Cayman will not let anyone in without quarantine? Infuriating, isn’t it?
Cant be that. Australia and NZ are on the green list.
You do realise quarantine is meant to protect your life, right?
I am willing to bet, the same people that would sue government if they catch COVID because of lack of quarantine are the same that don’t believe in quarantine. Stupidity at its finest. What is the rush?
The vaccine is meant to protect my life!
Anyone that was worried about their life or the lives of others should already be vaccinated!
Just shows exactly what Mother thinks of us!
Yet we, the faithful, continue to be unabashedly loyal citizens.
Sad.
6.16pm “Unabashedly loyal citizens”, which island do you live on?.We have hordes of “citizens” constantly bashing the UK on CNS showing what you think of “Mother”.
It is very disappointing indeed that the government has back tracked from their pledge to reopen the borders once 70 percent of inhabitants are vaccinated.
It is very disappointing that Caymanian Children are unable to travel on School holiday to Covid Free United States due to limited flights and draconian 15 day quarantine.
It is very disappointing that our freedoms are being curtailed for no defensible medical reason, only for populist politics.
3/06 @ 6:08pm – you criticize “populist politics” but reference “covid-free USA” and “freedoms being curtailed” in reference to a pandemic. Please note, it was populist Donald Trump who made pandemic responses into a political issue, instead of the public health issue it really is, by referring to “freedoms” being breached regarding masks, social distancing, gatherings, etc. which, in fact, led to a covid-ravaged USA.
Seems like not only do you not even know the definition of populist politics but also had a taste of the “deny-culture koolaid”!!
UK scheme seems pretty poor. Either you need a 10 day quarantine or you can be let out after 5 days. Logically there is no way that the science and the risk changes based on your paying to be let out early.
It’s risk based. If you make people pay for a test after 5 days to exit early or pay for no test after 10 days, fewer people will exit quarantine after 5 days, so you have reduced the numbers of potentially infected people mixing with others.
It is indeed hard to understand why we are not green. It will be infuriating for the many who have to go to the UK to study, or see family. We do not have Covid! We are unique on earth in that regard. The other Overseas Territories do not enjoy our hard won and now longstanding status, and I look forward to the UK’s explanation.
Complaining about seeing family during a pandemic? There was no compassion when people were saying that borders closed and the quarantine period in cayman were causing issues visiting families and friends.
It is very hard and infuriating, isn’t it?
To be frank…
Why should Cayman go on the green list when you expect Vaccinated British citizens to quarantine here if they come. Do you not see this is unfair when the UK taxpayer has supplied you with vaccinations for free and some here have failed to do the responsible thing and GET VACCINATED. I as a British citizen do not see why you should be able to go to the UK without quarantine while vaccinated Brits coming here have to quarantine.
Open the border, force people to get vaccinated and stop portraying ‘entitlement’.
Maybe it because of the simple fact that we have no local transmission of COVID-19 while Merry old England still does.
There are none so blind as those who will not see!
Are you be 100% sure there is no local transmission? Most people don’t even know they have Covid. No reason to get tested, because “we don’t have local transmission”. Those who feel vulnerable still wear masks in Cayman. I’m not scaremongering, just tired of our “experts who state facts”.
Unless I read it wrong the article said “Anyone going to Britain from Cayman” which includes the Brits living here, does it not?
I agree completely that quarantine should be lifted for vaccinated travelers coming to Cayman – especially given the high rate of vaccination in Cayman – and also that Cayman should be on the UK green list to allow travelers from here to the UK to avoid quarantine.
But I don’t think it’s an inconsistent position for government to take to require travelers coming here from the UK, where covid is circulating, to quarantine and still argue that travelers from here, where there is no covid in circulation, to the UK should not have to do so.
There is only one set of traffic lights, and that’s out of the UK. So I would suspect that if students want to return to the UK for study our light there is showing green!
And you are quite right, we all worked hard to get where we are today, let’s keep safe for everyone!
Can you read? I mean, really, did you read the article? The traffic lights are for entry INTO the UK. Sure the UK government is discouraging travel abroad to amber and red countries, but the traffic lights apply when you renewed, not when you leave.
8.04pm Our traffic light system is certainly different, half our drivers travel through on red and not one has been quarantined in jail.
Covid is not going anywhere. It is here forever. Get that through your thick head.
Its not here at all. Get that through your thick head.
Either does any other country that doesn’t count people in quarantine with covid.
Amber means go faster
Loads of amber gamblers here