Cayman’s active COVID-19 cases reached a new high of 2,118, as a record 669 new community cases were logged by Public Health from 8am Friday to 8am Monday.
These results, released by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday morning, came hours after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the Cayman Islands to the Level 4 list of countries with a very high level of COVID-19, and advised against travel here.
In the latest update, Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said that since the last COVID-19 results announcement on Friday, 3,696 PCR tests had been conducted, of which the Public Health Department reported 678 total positives.
Of these positive results, nine were in travellers and 669 were from the community.
As of 8am on Monday, 14 COVID-19 patients were hospitalised in the Cayman Islands.
Lee, in a further video update Tuesday afternoon, said of those hospitalised with COVID-19 at the Cayman Islands Hospital there are five needing extra oxygen “but there is no one on a ventilator and no one needing enhanced respiratory support”.
He added, “I think it’s important to understand that not only are people being admitted but they’re also being discharged, so since Friday there have been 14 people in total admitted, but at the same time there’ve been 12 people that have been discharged and that’s what you would expect; as people get treated, they get better and they’re able to go home again.”
Lee acknowledged the “large number” of positives reported Tuesday, saying, “I think it’s important to realise, though, that we now have over 200 reports of lateral flow tests embedded within that figure.”
All the results include positive lateral flow test results, which residents are required to report after conducting the home test.
Since the lateral flow programme was introduced late last month, there have been 832 total positive results, also up to 8am on Monday, according to Public Health.
Lee said with active cases now at 2,118 this “gives us a prevalence, which means the number of people suffering or having contracted SARS-COv2 being around 3% across the islands”.
He stressed that by people isolating when they have COVID-19, Cayman will bring down the positive rates locally by keeping the infections out of the community.
“We are doing an awful lot of testing not only in PCR testing, but also in the lateral flow, and the whole purpose of this testing is to try to identify people who are positive because people who are positive for Sars-COVID-2 can go on to spread the infection,” he said.
Monday’s statistics takes the total number of cases in Cayman since the start of the pandemic to 3,354.
A total of 2,785 people were in quarantine, either in government isolation facilities or at home, according to the latest COVID-19 update.
The numbers of positive vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have not been released.
Meanwhile, over at Faith Hospital on Cayman Brac, for the same period, there were 81 active cases in the Sister Islands, with two identified in the previous 24 hours and both from the community.
Up to 8am Monday, 57,074 people, or 80% of an estimated 71,106 population, had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 54,838 individuals (77%) had completed the two-dose course. In total, 118,075 COVID-19 vaccinations have been given in the Cayman Islands.
Additionally, 6,163 people had received a third, or booster, dose up to 8am Monday.
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