PATIENT HOSPITALISED WITH COVID-19

A person has been admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

A brief statement issued by Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee said the individual, a traveller, was removed from quarantine and taken to the Critical Care Unit (CCU) at the Health Services Authority.

"The patient is still able to do everything on their own. I know we all wish to express our concern and best wishes to the patient, and their family, for the patient’s speedy recovery," Dr Lee said.

The patient had tested positive for the virus upon arrival in Cayman and initially placed in quarantine.

No further details were provided.

The disclosure was made at the CMO reported that there was one positive case of COVID-19 in the last batch of test results reported on Friday.

That brings the number of confirmed cases reported in the territory since the outbreak last year to 383 of which 346 have recovered.

As of Friday January 22nd there was one person hospitalised with the disease and 34 other positive cases in isolation out of a total of 861 in quarantine.

A total of 92 test results, the lowest in recent times, were reported on Friday.

So far, 65,821 tests have been carried out - a number which approximates with the population of the Cayman Islands. However, multiple tests are being done on individuals as the situation warrants.

Meanwhile, the number of persons who have received the COVID-19 Pfizer-BIoNTech vaccine has increased to 6,641, which leaves just 3,109 doses left from the first consignment.

A further shipment is expected on Thursday January 28th from the UK. The British government is providing the vaccines free of charge to the Cayman Islands and the other Overseas Territories.

The UK government has assured that it has adequate stocks of the vaccine available in the short term in the face of reports that both the Pfizer-BionTech and the AstraZeneca Oxford drugs are running into production shortfalls.

However, this was only expected to affect the EU supplies and not the UK.

Concerns continue to mount over emerging COVID-19 variants, how contagious they are and whether they are more deadly with attention focused on the UK, Brazilian and South African variants in particular.

The UK variant is said to be responsible for a surge in cases in England and is now showing up in other countries.

Cayman’s health officials are in contact with their UK counterparts on that.

Samples collected here have been sent to the UK for testing to determine that any of one those variants might be present here.