Why weren’t we tested today? Not that I like having things shoved up my nose or anything. I just would like to know if we are going about all this in the right way.
We’ve just completed Day 8 of isolation, wearing a tracking wristband, that communicates with a device, which beeps often, about 20 times per day, and 5 times at night. This system is questionable. For example, this morning I receive a call from the monitoring centre, to ask if B is still with us, they haven’t been able to track him since Day 2! He’s barely left his bedroom, where his device is plugged in, I explain. What I am left to wonder is why they are only flagging this 5 days later?!
To keep things interesting, it was announced in the news this morning, that a four-person crew arrived in Cayman today, to scout locations for a reality TV show, and are being allowed to enter the country without going through the required quarantine protocols.
We are one week into our quarantine, after the teens arrived from the UK last Thursday night. They weren’t required to do a pre-travel test, unlike many of their friends who travelled home to other countries. They were tested on arrival, (both negative,) but won’t be tested again until Day 15. What I want to know is, why not? Even while this 15-day restriction is in place, small groups of quarantine volunteers could still be tested on Day 8 (as proposed by Marc Langevin of CITA), or every 4 days, as some other countries do.
The 15-day quarantine restriction has suffocated our tourism industry, which used to supply 20% of Cayman Islands GDP, and support thousands of jobs. Our family is doing ok, with plenty of chores around the house and garden to keep us busy. But if I were a traveler, on a (not-so-inexpensive) holiday of a lifetime, I would be getting tired with the monitored restrictions around now. The Cayman Islands are in the business of offering the ultimate Caribbean experience. Instead, we are offering an experience akin to a young offender’s second chance, and it simply isn’t cutting it.
I understand why and how we have ended up in this predicament: to protect the islands’ most vulnerable. And I fully support our actions as a country to keep our people safe. What isn’t clear is why are we not trying to evolve out of it now that we have a vaccine roll-out program announced? Our vulnerable will soon be protected soon, so why not work towards progress while we wait?
The Cayman Islands hold a lot of fear around the coronavirus. The best way out of fear is to embrace facts and data. I’d love to see some more data being collected, regarding how long it takes travelers to present a positive result, if they have been exposed to a positive case. The UK announced this morning that they recommend travelers self-quarantine for 10 days, in a bid to boost compliance, and because there is less than a 1% chance a positive case would go undetected beyond that point. I would willingly be tested every day of this enforced isolation, if I thought it would help the government collect data with view to reducing the quarantine requirement.
Cayman cannot live in a bubble forever, and around the world, different countries have vastly different responses to the pandemic. Some examples include:
- Anguilla, Belize, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Israel, Oman, Sri-Lanka, Syria, Vietnam, Yemen Mauritius, Seychelles, and New Zealand has prohibited travelers altogether.
- South Korea, North Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Australia, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago have a mandatory 2-week quarantine period similar to the Cayman Islands.
- Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Kenya, South Africa do not require quarantine if arriving from approved countries, and can provide a negative pre-travel test.
- Iceland and Ireland offer a choice of a two-week quarantine or a double testing procedure involving only 4/5 days of quarantine if tested negative.
- Maldives welcomes visitors with negative pre-travel test, yet returning residents have a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
- Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Costa Rica, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Greenland, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Turks and Caicos are open to travelers with negative pre-travel test.
- Mexico and most of the US states do not have any mandatory travel quarantine period.
So how do we know that 15-days quarantine isn’t overly cautious? Clearly many countries think it is.
A Caymanian friend of mine said recently “Closing the borders to tourists is a Caymanian’s wet-dream”. But this has rapidly become a nightmare for all within the tourism sector, and it is unsustainable.
The other area we need to find a solution to here is how Caymanians, who need to travel abroad for education, medical reasons, and business, will be able to come and go. In our family, for example, we have a business to run down the road, and can’t take 15-days out every time the kids come home from their studies abroad. I understand some Caymanian families will say that we have the option to send our kids to university here on island. But, families do things differently too.
The newly announced enforced vaccine requirement for travelers isn’t helping matters. There is already outcry from folks who wish to visit Cayman who can’t get vaccinated, (too young, too low on the priority list, or too pregnant.) The vaccine debacle is distracting away from what we need to be focusing on, testing and learning how to reduce this crippling 15-day rule, and devise a real re-opening plan.
Now it’s Friday night, and I am making potatoes dauphinoise as a side dish, and bearnaise sauce from scratch, to go with our dinner. These are two dishes I would never make normally, because of the ridiculousness of how long they both take. Today, I approach dinner differently, in recognition of the excessive amount time I have on my hands.
8 days in, and I’d like to see my friends, I would like to stretch my legs on a beach walk, and it would be helpful to visit the business during the limited days it is open. Next time the kids come home, I would like us to do this differently. And if I were a tourist, I wouldn’t pay for us to go on a holiday of a lifetime to be stuck in one place like this. Why would anyone else?