CAYMAN STABLE AS COVID SPIKES ELSEWHERE

At the end of a week that saw several countries recording huge increases in COVID-19 case, Cayman continues to record relatively low incidences of the virus.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr John Lee, reported on Monday that of the latest batch of 455 COVID-19 tests over a 24-hour period had 2 positive cases

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Cayman has confirmed 242 cases of persons infected with the virus. There’s been only one fatality.

As of Monday  9 cases remain active and are not yet considered recovered from the virus. Of that number 6 are asymptomatic and three are showing the flu-like symptoms indicative if the presence of the virus.

One person is hospitalised.

There were 647 persons in isolation either at home or in a government-managed facility up to Monday.

Meanwhile, several countries are seeing a new surge of the COVID-19 with the UK being the latest to announce a national lockdown in England.

Scotland will have its own five-tier system of coronavirus restrictions from Monday, while Wales and Northern Ireland are already in the middle of temporary lockdowns.

The lockdown in England will be in effect from next Thursday until December 2nd.

The UK overall has seen a recent surge in cases, and the number of deaths is also increasing.

In declaring the lockdown in a hastily called press conference on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of deaths possibly reaching several thousand a day and likely to exceed the worse of the crisis experienced in the UK in April.

Saying “no responsible prime minister" could ignore the gravity of the situation Mr Johnson declared: “Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day.”

On Saturday, the UK reported over one million cases of COVID-19 to date with 46,555 since the outbreak.

Mr Johnson contracted the virus during its first phase and was seriously ill in hospital.

In the United States, where President Donald Trump is reported to have had a recent brief brush with the virus, the outbreak is also spiking again across many states.

By Saturday, it had reached over nine million cases.

Over 230,000 people have died in America due to the vorus and the number is increasing.

How the Trump administration has managed the crisis is a major issue for next Tuesday’s presidential election despite the Trump camp seemingly downplaying the seriousness of the situation.

This past Thursday when over 1,000 people died from the virus, and daily cases hit a new record with nearly 90,000 new infections, President Trump tweeted that the numbers were “way down”.

His son, Don Jr, also alarmingly remarked that COVID-19 deaths are 'almost nothing' and referred to medical experts as "truly morons".

Across Europe, COVID-19 cases are also spiking with France, Germany, Belgium going into lockdown for the next four weeks and Spain now under a two-week state of emergency.