On Monday, Premier Wayne Panton addressed the community over the escalation in Covid-19 cases and said that while numbers were on the increase, people should stay calm as the healthcare services were able to cope. The country would continue with its reopening plan on 20 November and anyone saying that Cayman was heading for some kind of lockdown situation did not have a love for the country and its people, the Premier said.
“They are spreading unnecessary, unwanted and unwarranted stress and unease. We are one team, we are one Cayman and together we will get through this,” he stated.
Key indicators to watch for the government in its assessment of how well the country was coping was whether numbers of severe infection were on the increase. Mr Panton said Cayman was not seeing mass hospitalisations, nor was it seeing several cases of severe disease. The intensive care unit was not being crowded with sick people requiring ventilation; however as testing and reporting increased, so too would the number of positives be reported.
“We see this increase in community transmissions on all three islands as concerning but at the same time it’s manageable, when you realise that our critical preparedness and response plans are working,” he said.
Mr Panton urged the community to think carefully about making social visits where Covid-19 might have a chance to spread and asked people to call out others if they were not abiding by the guidelines of wearing masks and keeping a social distance.
He said the government was particularly committed to providing resources to the Sister Islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, where outbreaks had caused concern and anxiety. He noted that 719 people had been tested on the Sister islands last week and that had revealed 40 cases so far.
However, people were getting vaccinated and also getting booster shots which was helping to keep the severity of the disease at bay.
As a result, a potential lockdown or changes to the phase 4 opening plan was “fake news” and completely inconsistent with the facts, he confirmed.
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