Cayman possible border reopening without quarantine by April or May!

[scubadada]

Email message from Clearly Cayman this morning:

 

[Joneill]

E-mail message from Hertz Cayman today suggesting a Nov 1 opening - we’ll see:

 

[tridacna]

E-mail message from Hertz Cayman today suggesting a Nov 1 opening - we’ll see:

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Should be “Fully Vaccinated” not “ Double Vaccinated”. Unless they want to exclude J&J.

 

[tridacna]

Also, according to the Cayman Compass today, CI numbers at 66% with one dose, 59% with two. Is Hertz just lying outright?

 

[Divetech Cayman]

Also, according to the Cayman Compass today, CI numbers at 66% with one dose, 59% with two. Is Hertz just lying outright?

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One of the problems is no one knows what the population of the Cayman Islands actually is. The old government used one estimate and the new government used a different method. A proper census is about to be conducted, but I fear the method they will use to conduct this census will not be terribly accurate.

Tony

 

[tridacna]

One of the problems is no one knows what the population of the Cayman Islands actually is. The old government used one estimate and the new government used a different method. A proper census is about to be conducted, but I fear the method they will use to conduct this census will not be terribly accurate.

Tony

No matter which is used, CI certainly not 80% vaccinated. Wonder how they came to Nov 1? Do they know something? Or just a finger in the wind?

 

[drrich2]

Just a guess, one figure might be looking at vaccine-eligible people (e.g.: adults, people 16+ at the time, etc...), and another might be looking at the whole population - including vaccine-ineligible children. Here in the U.S., reported figures on COVID-19 related metrics may vary pretty widely.

 

[Divetech Cayman]

No matter which is used, CI certainly not 80% vaccinated. Wonder how they came to Nov 1? Do they know something? Or just a finger in the wind?

No, they don't know anything. I'm not sure how they came to draft this email the way it was sent. Maybe wishful thinking, maybe a subordinate mis-understood their boss when told to compose the email. Maybe the guy who wrote the email has a brother-in-law who's cousin was former roommates with the Premier's son and thinks he has inside information.

We've all heard of the (politically incorrectly named) game of Chinese Whispers that we played as kids. Sitting in a big circle, one kid would whisper a statement, and it gets passed around the circle. By the time it returns to the start of the circle, the statement is completely and totally different. It's human nature - errors or exaggerations typically accumulate in the retellings of any story. This effect is hugely amplified on such a small rock like Grand Cayman, or on a forum like Scubaboard.

Most citizens of the United States will never encounter a Senator or Congressman in the general public outside of some sort of political function. Here, you can and do meet members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, and the Premier out and about - at the store, in a restaurant, or walking their dog. Everyone here has a cousin or a friend who works in government, or who knows the Deputy Governor's wife, or plays rugby with a Minister's son. Everyone claims to have some sort of inside information. A very small percentage might actually have some accurate info. 99% have unsubstantiated and inaccurate rumors, which get repeated, twisted around, repeated again, and then picked up by the press and reporters as fact. Then others report this to their customers. Cumulative error compounds inaccuracies as the story spread from one person to the next.

I'm not saying that's what happened here. For all I know the person who wrote the Hertz email is a minister's wife and has full access to the hidden "plans." More likely it was one of the other reasons I wrote at the top of this post. For the better part of a year I watched as people reported inaccurate fact after fact about the Government's reopening plans. In all that time, they never actually had any reopening plans, something recently revealed by our Premier Mr Panton. This proved that anyone who "had the inside scoop" was full of BS. While Government now have a plan they are working on, they still don't have an actual opening date yet as the situation is dynamic and there are too many unknown variables to determine this presently.

Eventually, when enough people make guesses as to the reopening, someone will get it right. ;-)

Tony

 

[kelemvor]

Reading all the threads about when a dive destination will open and what will be required to get in, I am not reading posts expressing any concern about getting back home. The new requirement of having to take a test 3 days before returning to the US and having a negative test to present to the airlines prior to boarding on your US return flight doesn't receive much mention as a concern.

Maybe its just me. I am not prepared at the moment of taking the chance of a positive test or not getting the test or results in time and being refused boarding for my return flight or worse escorted away to an island quarantine center for who knows how long and at what expense. The few comments I have read on the issue seem to brush it off as well I will just get a couple more weeks of diving and vacation. Not sure that will be the case.

That's exactly my concern. Others as well obviously since Florida is jam packed with tourists during the off season. It's a critical question after reading several horror stories of what they do to you if you're tested positive on the way home. Countries need to outline exactly what their quarantine sites are like if they want to attract tourists. Well, that, and you know.. not have them be something from a horror movie.

 

[tkaelin]

Others as well obviously since Florida is jam packed with tourists during the off season.

Are you seeing an up tick in divers coming to FL? I was amazed to see a dive center, Rainbow Reef, with 8 boats, 7 of them large ones, having many of the boats fully booked on their dive schedule/calendar.