Cayman the ‘envy’ of other countries, says departing COVID chief

In February 2020, Dr. John Lee presented data projections on the possible impact of COVID-19 to Cayman’s leaders, concluding with a stark warning that “hundreds could die”.

This was before the virus had swept through Europe and Lee had yet to become the familiar face and calm reassuring voice of Cayman’s pandemic response. At the time, he was an important, but relatively unknown, healthcare administrator.

“When I first presented such disastrous stuff, nobody knew who I was,” he recalled in a final interview with the Cayman Compass, as he prepared to leave the island following his retirement from his post as chief medical officer.

“I wasn’t someone they would recognise in the lift.”

He credits the government at the time, particularly former Premier Alden McLaughlin and Governor Martyn Roper, with recognising the level of threat that Cayman faced and moving swiftly to activate an emergency response.

Those initial projections – based on preliminary data out of Wuhan, China, adjusted for Cayman’s population – indicated that as many as 800 people could die, if no action was taken. The figures were adjusted, as more information about the virus and how to manage it developed.

But Lee is convinced that the steps taken by successive governments – starting with the border closure and national lockdown and culminating in the successful campaign to vaccinate 80% of the population – have saved many lives.

The fact that Cayman has now had a huge outbreak – with around 10,000 cases since the pandemic began – and only 12 deaths is testament, said Lee, to the fact that its leaders successfully kept COVID at bay, until the vast majority of its people were vaccinated.

While the border closure hurt tourism, he believes countries that have been through multiple lockdowns, school closures and a wave of internal restrictions have suffered worse impacts.

If Cayman had reopened earlier or simply let the virus run its course, he said, “I think we would have seen a lot of deaths. We could also have seen a lot more mental health issues and it would have been very disruptive to the economy.”

‘Vaccinations are working’

The deaths that Cayman has had – including 10 in the last five months – do trouble him.

“What is a great shame is that for [some of] the people who could have been vaccinated, lives could have been saved…. I see it as a failure somewhere that we haven’t managed to get the perfect message across or given people enough reassurance.”

Despite that concern, set alongside comparable jurisdictions globally, he believes Cayman’s vaccine campaign has been especially successful. The right messaging on the right platforms at the right times was key, he says, to getting through to enough people to make a significant difference.

He acknowledged there have been side-effects from the vaccine, estimating that “10 or 12” people of almost 60,000 vaccinated so far have suffered health impacts associated with the jab. There have been no deaths and, in most cases, he said, those patients have fully recovered. He added, “You also have to look at the lives that you’ve saved as a result of (the vaccine) and that is the big stimulus.”

After he spent almost two years in the public eye, it is jarring at times to see someone else deliver the COVID statistics and public health messaging.

For Lee, also, there have been mixed feelings about handing over the reins. But he expressed high confidence in his interim replacement, Dr. Autilia Newton, and praised the team effort that has been behind Cayman’s successful response to COVID-19.

He sees himself as one of the public faces of a national effort that has involved health experts from across the islands, political leaders, community donors, businesses, procurement experts and the people of Cayman.

‘Cayman in a strong position’

Despite the recent escalation in COVID-19 cases, he is confident that he is not leaving the island in a difficult position.

“I’m quite comfortable that I have not left at a bad time,” he said.

“I need to go home to look after my parents. But I think we’ve gone through the lockdown phase and we’ve gone through the vaccination phase. So we have put up the battlements and now we’re beginning to go back to normal.”

He sees the next challenges as getting anti-viral drugs on island, increasing the amount of people who have had booster shots and providing vaccinations for children who are eligible and whose families wish them to be vaccinated.

Low hospital admissions key

While Omicron brings concerns, he is hopeful that the future of the virus – as indicated in the preliminary data about that variant – could be less lethal. 

He said monitoring hospital admissions – still currently very low – would be key to determining whether further intervention was needed.

“We need to continue to put the brakes on admissions to hospital, we need to continue to consider that as our marker for now and until hopefully the virus mutates into something that is just a glorified cold.”

The pandemic has thrown so many curve balls that he is reluctant to predict that the world is through the worst. But he remains confident that Cayman is in a strong position to withstand whatever is to come.

“We will be the envy of many other countries for the position we are in at the moment,” he said. As he prepares to depart for the UK and a second attempt at retirement, Lee has come a long way from the relatively low profile he enjoyed in early 2020. There’s a flip-side to being one of the island’s most recognisable personalities and he has faced his share of criticism.

But, more often than not, when people approach him in the supermarket, they want to thank him and shake his hand.

Ever conscious of his status as a public health role model, he insists on an elbow or a fist bump. But he is grateful for the support.

“It makes me feel that is why I did it. That’s why all healthcare providers do their job. It is because they want to go in there and help people.”

Dr. Lee: In his own words

In an in-depth interview with the Compass, Dr. Lee spoke about the future of the virus, the anti-vaccination voices and his own approach to the crisis. Here’s his views…

On whether the worst has passed:

“I can’t say that. COVID has thrown us so many curve balls, you would probably be a fool to say you’re confident of anything.”

On being calm in a crisis:

“For me, and for many people that work in those roles, as a clinical doctor, I become ultra calm, because if you are not the person that’s projecting calm, and projecting confidence, everyone around you is not going to feel it.”

On the anti-vax movement:

“I don’t quite understand it. You often think what’s the gain? There must be a gain for people to take a certain tack. I can’t see the gain.”

On the chances of another lockdown:

“I think you would need some very strong reasons to go back into a lockdown state, one of those being pressure on the hospitals that is unsustainable.”

On Cayman’s high infection rate:

“One of the reasons Cayman has such a high infection rate is that we’re measuring it and we’re spotting it. A lot of other countries will have infection rates much higher than they actually are claiming, because they are not counting it.”

On the future of masks and social distancing:

“I think it will lessen with time but, for the vulnerable, it’s going to remain. Probably in healthcare settings, it will remain for a number of years yet to come. If you’ve got any infectious disease, you should not really be around vulnerable people.”