As of Thursday, one person in Cayman had been confirmed to have the Omicron variant, and 10 others were suspected cases, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Samuel Williams-Rodriguez stated at a press briefing.
The confirmed case – the first in Cayman – was reported on Wednesday and involves a traveller from the United States who was found to be positive two days after arriving in Cayman, when the person took a lateral flow test, followed by a PCR test and genome sequencing which identified the Omicron variant.
This means the traveller was in the community for two days before testing positive.
Under current regulations, travellers are required to take an LFT two, five and 10 days after arriving, but do not have to isolate unless one of those tests proves positive. At that point, the person is required to notify the Public Health Department, which will organise a PCR test within 24 hours, Williams-Rodriguez said.
He said a person in the traveller’s household was among the 10 suspected cases. The others were all incoming travellers, most of whom came from the US, with one each from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Government members expressed concerns over the speed at which Omicron is spreading worldwide, with cases doubling every two days.
Premier Wayne Panton said, “This is a very serious situation with Omicron. If we do have Omicron that turns into community transmission here, it will spread very, very rapidly, and we have real concerns about that.”
He added that these concerns had prompted government to implement new restrictions locally, including bars and clubs closing at midnight, limits on gathering sizes, and advising people to work from home.
Travel restrictions
Government officials at Thursday’s press briefing said they would review the current travel restrictions which were introduced late last month following the identification of the new variant in South Africa.
Regulations were passed locally at the time, requiring travellers who, in the 14 days before arriving in Cayman, had departed from or passed through Belgium, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia or Zimbabwe, to quarantine for 14 days.
Now that the World Health Organization has reported that the Omicron variant has been recorded in at least 77 countries, Panton said the government would likely remove the 10 named countries from the restrictions list.
He said there were no plans to add to the restricted list the UK, or other countries where many cases of Omicron were now being reported.
Testing of Omicron
Under current regulations, all household members of a person who has tested positive for the Omicron variant are required to quarantine for 14 days.
Asked how a person could be sure they had the variant, and therefore require that their family or household members should be isolating, Williams-Rodriguez said household members should isolate along with the positive person until a PCR test could confirm whether the virus strain was Omicron or not.
If Omicron is confirmed, the family or household would be required to be in mandatory quarantine.
With early research into Omicron showing that two doses of a COVID vaccine provide limited protection against the variant, and that a third, or booster, dose offers more protection, health and government officials strongly urged anyone who had received their second dose more than three months ago to immediately get a booster.
As of Thursday morning, 21% of the population had received a booster shot.
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Unfortunately this is inevitable so please everyone take the Booster and keep the island safe.
Can someone explain to be the science behind this person being allowed to enter the islands without quarantine but still the government mandates 14 days for children but doesn’t permit 5-12 year old’s access to the vaccine. They say that they are following the UK with child vaccines but the UK doesn’t lock their children up for two weeks without reason!
Omicron is here to stay. So is the Greek named variant that will follow it. To the triple Pfizer vaccinated, it is a survivable flu compared to the first variant that caused shock and awe around the world. There has been a misconception since the beginning of this pandemic, that governments could help effectively solve and manage this pandemic. This was perpetuated by large governments of the World who saw this as their galvanizing moment to impress their citizenry with their execution, ability and to justify the high taxes they hoped to soon anyway impose, in order to pay for the debts of the past. Small governments like ours have tried to emulate the large ones which doesn’t make any sense in the first instance. The best thing we ever did here was get vaccines early and get the right ones… The second best thing we ever did was get them in the arms of the people quickly. The worst thing we ever did was not open soon enough to try to get some kind of natural immunity and accept that some people here are just going to have to get sick. just like some smokers refuse to stop smoking and will die from cancer. We never used to lock down the country when cruise-shippers came and gave us all terrible bouts of Norwalk (which killed some of our elderly ). We never locked down the country every year during flu season, but now we have sunken into this weird nanny state where we keep copying the big governments in the world who don’t see any way to end their control culture, and who keep trying to solve the unsolvable. Hoping we can break the cycle, get open and manage the new reality in which we live.
The double vax is not going to be as effective against Omicron this is now common knowledge. How deadly it will be we still don’t know. But if we get boosted it gives a much better protection for our community. Hence No lockdown needed. Covid is here for a long time. Vaccination is the key. If as I do, you want to stop lockdowns and border closures get you, your family and friends vaccinated. The booster for double vax people who have not recently had their second jab is essential to keep us safe, tourism safe and the people in jobs.
Government needs to step up this message.
Shorter more focused announcements at gov briefings and less rambling overlong unrehearsed speeches please. Government is part of the picture but, its actually down to us all in Cayman to do get boosted/vaccinated and beat covid.
Consider this. An infected person [whether symptomatic or not] may be carrying more than one variant strain of the Covid virus. The present vaccines were designed for previous strains and may well prompt the body to cope with those. But they are not designed to cope with, or more precisely prompt the body to cope with, the newer strains. By being vaccinated, the body is able to largely cope with whatever older strains a person may be exposed to, but that leaves unattended the Omicron or other newer versions. That may explain why those who are indeed vaccinated have less severe reactions to exposure and infection of the newer strains. Conclusion: get vaccinated, and get the booster, and even though they may not be directly impactful on the newer strains, you will likely be far less sick.