The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has moved the Cayman Islands to the Level 4 list of countries with a very high level of COVID-19, and is advising against travel to the region. The 4-level system rates destinations based on incidence rate or case count thresholds.
The move comes as Cayman’s COVID-19 numbers have jumped dramatically since a local community outbreak in September. In the past five weeks, active cases have risen from 70 on 1 Oct to 1,600 on 5 Nov.
Under the primary criteria for inclusion on the agency’s Level 4 list, a destination like Cayman, with a population of fewer than 100,000, must have had more than 500 new cases within the previous 28 days. Secondary criteria include a destination’s testing rate and test-to-case ratio.
For very high-risk destinations, the CDC advises people to avoid travel there. Anyone who must travel should be fully vaccinated first. It warns that even fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants.
“Fully vaccinated travelers are less likely to get and spread COVID-19. However, international travel poses additional risks, and even fully vaccinated travelers might be at increased risk for getting and possibly spreading some COVID-19 variants,” the CDC wrote in its updated travel notice on the Cayman Islands.
Up to Monday night the latest COVID-19 stats had yet to be released.
However according to the last count, issued on Friday, 194 new cases has been recorded up to 8am that day.
In addition, 12 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, all in stable condition. As off Friday the number of active cases of COVID-19 in the Cayman Islands stood at 1,600. The total number of cases recorded since the start of the pandemic stands at 2,676.
Luxembourg, the Faroe Islands, and the Netherlands were also added to the Level 4 list. There were 80 countries at Level 4 as of 8 Nov. Cayman was moved to Level 3, or “high” risk for COVID-19 just two weeks ago on 27 Oct.
The CDC uses COVID-19 data reported by the World Health Organization and other official sources to make determinations about its travel health notice levels.
Reshma Ragoonath also contributed to this report.
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We will get more cases until suddenly we have many less as we reach herd. Same thing that happened in Florida and today (co-incidentally) it was announced that masks are now optional in schools there. From infection hot spot to masks-optional in 2 months. The only way to get past covid is for a society’s people to go through the virus. If you have been holding out on getting a vaccination you literally owe it to yourself and your family to go today and get one. Even a single dose of the vaccine is enough to to help you avoid serious illness or death.