Several businesses across Cayman say the latest COVID-19 regulations, which once again mandate mask wearing, social distancing, crowd-size limitations and, in some circumstances, proof of vaccination before services can be accessed, have caused new hardships.
“These are challenging times, for everyone, and we are all trying to work with the government, but these new regulations have caused a great deal of fear in the community and made doing business even harder,” said restaurateur Markus Mueri, who is the restaurant director of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association.
The new regulations came into force on 24 Sept., and will expire 22 Nov., unless Cabinet decides to change that deadline. Mask mandates, limits to crowd size and social distancing requirements were first introduced in 2020, under the previous government as part of strict measures to prevent community spread of COVID-19.
The first cases of local transmission in a year, followed by outbreaks of the virus at George Town Primary School and Prospect Primary School have resulted in the return of these protocols, as a means to live with the virus, ahead of an anticipated border reopening.
However, Mueri said several of the restrictions are simply not practicable.
“Our guests are very understanding, and they wear their masks and sanitise as they enter the bars,” said Mueri. “However, the regulations also require people to wear their masks when they leave their tables or while standing in the bar, but this is not practicable, say, on a Friday evening during happy hour.”
Mueri said the crowd limitations have also caused mass cancellations of popular Christmas activities such as staff parties, galas and other private events.
“We were depending on those events to help get us through, and now we are losing them because of the restrictions on crowd sizes. Again, we understand what the government is trying to do, but with closed borders and limited numbers of people it is very hard for these restaurants to survive,” he said.
Gyms, fitness centres, and sporting venues to play by different rules
Gyms and fitness centres are also required to abide by the new regulations.
At World Gym, Samuel Young Jr and his team worked to comply with the regulations by moving machines further apart, marking out exercise boundaries and enhancing their cleaning supplies and products to hospital-grade levels.
“We also launched something educational in the form of a video to show what we were doing and to show our members how to use the gym in a very simple way… so it isn’t always an orientation when they get to the gym,” said Young Jr.
He said he understands the government is in a very difficult position as it weighs its options and makes difficult decisions. One such decision was to enact new regulations requiring people to be vaccinated before going to the gym or to provide a negative PCR test in advance.
Some gyms have faced a wave of freezing and/or cancellation of memberships.
“There was obviously frustration from members bright and early Monday morning [after the sporting venue regulations came into effect], because it was brand new,” said Young Jr.
He added that the initial fear and anxiety has since died down, and while his gym also received several requests to either cancel or suspend memberships, new members have since signed on.
Since the release of the new regulations, the Ombudsman’s Office has issued a statement requiring gyms and fitness centres and other entities named in the document, to protect people’s private medical data concerning vaccination information.
To avoid a breach, Young Jr. said his staff do not collect or store personal data; instead members are required to show either the actual vaccination certificate or a photo of it.
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