Premier Alden McLaughlin said government is planning to close public beaches Easter Monday and possibly beyond amid concerns of people congregating in large numbers. His comments came as eight new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the Cayman Islands.
McLaughlin said the latest batch of results, which included six cases not yet linked to travel or to previous positive cases, was extremely worrying. The latest results bring the total number of reported cases in Cayman to 53.
Combined with reports of large crowds, including people drinking on the beach on Good Friday, he said the news had prompted government to clamp down further.
The premier initially announced plans to close the beaches Easter Monday, later suggesting that Cabinet could impose a more general closure of all public beaches as part of the COVID-suppression measures.
Describing it as a “deeply regrettable decision”, he said, “We are taking away something that we know is a real pleasure for many people, and those who are behaving perfectly reasonably are now having to be penalised along with those who constantly abuse the opportunity. If we don’t do it, Easter Monday will be carnage.”
The premier said Cabinet would change the regulations Sunday afternoon and the ban would be in place by midnight. He said further discussion would be needed with his colleagues before a decision was taken on whether the ban extends beyond Monday.
“Many people are out there partying, believing they are well, but you can believe some of them are carrying the virus,” he said.
He added that the latest results were extremely concerning.
“These are, quite frankly, the most worrying results we have had,” he said, “and we are anxious about the results of the tracing programme which is now under way.”
He warned that because people were still not taking the curfew measures seriously enough, there would be “tragic times” in store if they did not start to do so.
“The way people were interacting on Seven Mile Beach yesterday was especially worrying. These sorts of interactions are what causes massive community spread of the virus,” he said.
Commissioner Derek Byrne reported that police on ATV and foot patrols had encountered large numbers of people on the beach drinking beer, but walking around and saying they were exercising.
He said people were moving around to try to appear to comply with the law but were often in large groups, in breach of restrictions on public gathering.
Sunday is a hard curfew day so access to the beaches that day is already restricted.
New results
Announcing the results of 57 tests carried out between Tuesday and Thursday last week, Cayman’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said two of the new COVID-19 cases involved contacts of people who had previously tested positive. With regard to the other six positive cases, Lee said in-depth contact tracing was still taking place to determine how they had contracted the virus.
Governor Martyn Roper said the six new cases, not yet linked to previous cases, were particularly concerning.
“We are tracing, but we don’t yet know where this has come from in the community,” he said.
Lee said in cases where tracing had been completed, most of Cayman’s 53 cases were still linked to travel.
“Most of them, we have had an idea of where the contact has come from… almost in every case, we have linked it somehow to people who have travelled from abroad,” he said.
Lee said there were now a large number of people in isolation and follow-ups were taking place to trace and test the contacts of all those who had tested positive.
Three COVID-positive patients are currently in hospital, Lee said. Two are patients at Health City who are being treated for non-coronavirus-related issues. The third, previously admitted to the Cayman Islands Hospital, is a coronavirus patient whose condition was said to be improving.
Evacuation flights in the works
With the economic impact of the COVID-19 suppression measures and border closure taking its toll, the governor said further evacuation flights were being considered to allow work-permit holders who had lost jobs to return home.
He said there would be another British Airways flight to London, probably in around 10 days. His office is also working on options for potential flights to Nicaragua, Kingston, Toronto and Miami.
“Nothing is yet agreed and this remains very challenging,” he said.
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Regarding potential evacuation flights, for many North American stay over visitors and property owners, being delivered to Miami is of no appeal. I am sure that there are quite a large number of people who would find Chicago a much more appealing destination – and we will pay the extra expense involved.
So far we have had only one death, that Italian gentleman from the cruise ship. But our rate of infection per thousand of population is skyrocketing.
Why?
The answer comes from reading how Asian countries have handled this compared to western nations.
1. Anyone infected along with their whole family should be put in mandatory isolation. Not told to stay home in the hope that they will.
If the government wants to leave people in their homes then everyone in that household must be conspicuously tagged and tracked. Told that food will be delivered to them at no delivery charge but they will go to prison if they leave their home.
2. The general public must understand that transmission mostly occurs indoors through talking, coughing, sneezing or even breathing. So wearing of a cloth face mask when in supermarkets etc. must be MANDATORY. No mask = no admission.