40 samples from George Town apartment complex negative for virus
The 40 samples taken from residents at a George Town apartment complex where a coronavirus patient was said to have failed to isolate all came back negative for the virus.
Giving an update on the situation at a press briefing Wednesday, Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said all 40 residents at the complex had been swabbed and laboratory tests had shown that none had contracted the virus.
The apartment complex was cordoned off temporarily and the residents were asked to isolate in their homes earlier this week. Those measures have now been lifted, though the normal curfew measures still apply.
The patient who failed to isolate agreed to go into a government-monitored isolation facility and remains quarantined at that location.
ORIGINAL STORY: Public Health officials have taken roughly 40 samples from residents at a George Town apartment complex that was cordoned off after a positive COVID-19 patient failed to self-isolate.
That individual has since been taken to a government facility for isolation.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said Tuesday that each apartment in the 26-unit complex was reviewed by health officials after a containment area was established there on Monday.
Each unit, he said, had their own risk assessments.
“If, for example, if somebody said ‘no, I’ve had absolutely no contact with anybody,’ then it is arguable, they might not have been swabbed. But I think, I suspect … they all have been swabbed there,” Lee said as he addressed the daily COVID-19 briefing.
He was unable to provide an overall figure of how many people reside at the complex, but indicated that each unit had separate kitchens, which eliminated co-mingling.
“Everybody is well at the complex as of this time … Some wider contacts are also being traced from that apartment unit,” he added.
Some of the apartments, he said, are single occupancy while others house two to three people.
Although Cayman has 54 positive COVID-19 cases, Lee said the local cases have not moved the country into “sustained community transmission”.
“At the moment, we have been declared to have clusters of cases,” Lee said, referring to Pan-American Health Organization and World Health Organization categorisation for how COVID-19 is progressing in every country.
“The first two categories are no cases and sporadic cases. So, we’re at the third category of clusters of cases, and that’s where we hope to stay. That’s why we’re putting all this intense effort into the suppression of COVID-19 so that we stay at cluster cases and don’t move to sustained community transmission,” Lee said.
Government has instituted strict measures to limit public interaction in a bid to slow the spread of the virus, the latest of which involves the closure of all public beaches.
Lee said almost every country in the world, including European countries and the US, has sustained community transmission, which is something the Cayman Islands government is fighting to prevent happening here.
“We’re putting so much effort into trying to not get into that category, as that’s where the numbers of people getting sick, the numbers of people dying, start to rise … That’s our current position,” he said.
Premier Alden McLaughlin has said he believes it is possible to completely eradicate COVID-19 from the Cayman Islands and government is working towards making that happen, but it requires the public’s cooperation.
“We believe it is absolutely possible to achieve a complete virus-free state in these islands, but we will only be able to do so if, collectively, we have the determination and the will to do so. Otherwise, all of us for the foreseeable future will be moving around with this sense of dread and concern in relation to every single person you meet, ‘Does he or she have it? Can I get this close to them or not?’” he said.
McLaughlin said government was pursuing “aggressive” suppression measures and he believes “Cayman has been ahead of the curve from the very outset, long before, I think, most people thought it was reasonable for us to start to impose restrictions on movement”.
The apartment complex was cordoned off temporarily and the residents were asked to isolate in their homes earlier this week. Those measures have now been lifted, though the normal curfew measures still apply.
The patient who failed to isolate agreed to go into a government-monitored isolation facility and remains quarantined at that location.
ORIGINAL STORY: Public Health officials have taken roughly 40 samples from residents at a George Town apartment complex that was cordoned off after a positive COVID-19 patient failed to self-isolate.
That individual has since been taken to a government facility for isolation.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said Tuesday that each apartment in the 26-unit complex was reviewed by health officials after a containment area was established there on Monday.
Each unit, he said, had their own risk assessments.
“If, for example, if somebody said ‘no, I’ve had absolutely no contact with anybody,’ then it is arguable, they might not have been swabbed. But I think, I suspect … they all have been swabbed there,” Lee said as he addressed the daily COVID-19 briefing.
He was unable to provide an overall figure of how many people reside at the complex, but indicated that each unit had separate kitchens, which eliminated co-mingling.
“Everybody is well at the complex as of this time … Some wider contacts are also being traced from that apartment unit,” he added.
Some of the apartments, he said, are single occupancy while others house two to three people.
Although Cayman has 54 positive COVID-19 cases, Lee said the local cases have not moved the country into “sustained community transmission”.
“At the moment, we have been declared to have clusters of cases,” Lee said, referring to Pan-American Health Organization and World Health Organization categorisation for how COVID-19 is progressing in every country.
“The first two categories are no cases and sporadic cases. So, we’re at the third category of clusters of cases, and that’s where we hope to stay. That’s why we’re putting all this intense effort into the suppression of COVID-19 so that we stay at cluster cases and don’t move to sustained community transmission,” Lee said.
Government has instituted strict measures to limit public interaction in a bid to slow the spread of the virus, the latest of which involves the closure of all public beaches.
Lee said almost every country in the world, including European countries and the US, has sustained community transmission, which is something the Cayman Islands government is fighting to prevent happening here.
“We’re putting so much effort into trying to not get into that category, as that’s where the numbers of people getting sick, the numbers of people dying, start to rise … That’s our current position,” he said.
Premier Alden McLaughlin has said he believes it is possible to completely eradicate COVID-19 from the Cayman Islands and government is working towards making that happen, but it requires the public’s cooperation.
“We believe it is absolutely possible to achieve a complete virus-free state in these islands, but we will only be able to do so if, collectively, we have the determination and the will to do so. Otherwise, all of us for the foreseeable future will be moving around with this sense of dread and concern in relation to every single person you meet, ‘Does he or she have it? Can I get this close to them or not?’” he said.
McLaughlin said government was pursuing “aggressive” suppression measures and he believes “Cayman has been ahead of the curve from the very outset, long before, I think, most people thought it was reasonable for us to start to impose restrictions on movement”.
