CMO confirms second COVID death over long weekend

Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee has confirmed the passing of a second COVID-19 patient over the long weekend.

Speaking on Radio Cayman’s ‘Talk Today‘ programme today, the CMO revealed the patient had passed away in the “early hours of yesterday morning at Health City”.

This brings Cayman’s total number of COVID-19 related deaths to four, following the passing of a 73-year-old man on Sunday.

“In both of the cases, I understand that COVID will be listed as a cause of death,” Lee said.

He explained death certificates will include all contributory factors to a person’s death, adding, “In both of these cases, the people had a lot of other medical problems and were very sick and, in both cases, it was not unexpected that they passed”.

He stressed “That doesn’t change the fact that the loss of any life is obviously a very sad thing”.

Lee also added that, going forward, deaths will be announced with the other statistics, rather than with an accompanying special announcement, “unless there is something peculiar”.

The CMO said he did not have the latest figures, with regards to the number of positive cases since Friday, as public health officials make sure there is no duplicate information included.

Noting that it has now been almost ten weeks since Cayman marked its first case of community transmission of the virus in over a year, Lee said he hoped that “soon the numbers might begin to fall off”.

He drew parallels with Bermuda’s recent spike in positive cases, citing the Overseas

Territory’s chief medical officer who said it had taken ten weeks to see some improvement in the figures.

Bermuda, like Cayman, has previously topped the New York Times global list for the most positive cases of COVID-19, when adjusted for population size.

The number of active cases in Bermuda, which has a population of 62,000, peaked at 1,612 on 25 Sept. On Monday, 15 Nov., Bermuda reported 49 active cases of the virus.

“It may take Cayman a bit longer, because we’ve put a lot of measures in place to slow down the spread of it: lateral flow testing, distancing, masks… it’s actually an attempt to slow down the numbers of people that are hitting the hospitals,” Lee said.

Cayman’s first recorded death from COVID-19 occurred in March 2020, followed by a second in November last year.