Curfewtime

There’s
no “guidebook” for dealing with a global pandemic. Like all other
governments around the world, the Cayman Islands Government had to
quickly make decisions and tough choices to protect its population
from Covid-19. 

At
the end of March, the country took an aggressive approach to stop the
virus in its tracks by implementing regulations that limited human
interactions and movement. This was achieved through a soft and hard
curfew. To most of us, the past three months probably seemed like an
eternity.

During
the restrictions, we had to make provisions for to allow exceptions
and essential services to continue. This is where a special team came
into the picture to determine who qualified for an exemption under
the regulations. This special team was referred to in the regulations
as the “Competent Authority.” This team, also known as the
“Curfew Time” team was led by Chief Officer Eric Bush and we owe
them a great debt of gratitude. 

During
the “shelter in place” regulations which began at the end of
March, Curfew Time was introduced to facilitate essential businesses.
It also helped to navigate circumstances that were not specifically
spelled out by the regulations.  

There
was also no guidebook for Curfew Time. Faced with a hugely
challenging situation, the Curfew Time team handled it with
efficiency, grace and ingenuity. 

The
team grew from 2 to 12 people in a week, working through 16 hour
days and initially 7 days a week, to handle the volume
of requests sent to the Curfew Time email inbox. 

With
full dedication, Curfew Time ensured that essential businesses could
operate in these unusual circumstances. Every day, the team answered
questions from businesses and the public about the regulations.  
 

Curfew
Time also worked to ensure that various sectors (ranging from
farmers to IT specialists) could continue to operate, that blood
donations could continue, and that elderly and otherwise vulnerable
individuals were cared for. It worked to ensure business continuity,
and to enable weddings and funerals to take place – limited as they
were. 

The
success of Curfew Time, combined with our country wide testing that
revealed the extent of Covid-19 in the Cayman Islands, meant that we
could undertake a “phased” re-opening of the Cayman Islands
economy, as well as the opening of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac
ahead of Grand Cayman. Each new phase brought change and challenges –
and these challenges actually made businesses adapt and innovate in
offering their goods and services. 

Over
the last few months the volume of requests grew and grew from
hundreds to thousands. By the end of April, after 5 weeks, the Curfew
Time team had received approximately 12,000 email requests. A single
exemption request could involve multiple emails back and forth
seeking relevant information. This volume led the team to seek
technological assistance.

The
OfReg ICT and Curfew Time teams worked together and designed an
online form and an automated workflow process to help streamline,
simplify and automate requests which greatly reduced the workload on
the Curfew Time team, and increased the efficiency of the entire
process. The success of the online form once again showed the
agility, capability and talent of the Cayman Islands Government.

As
of today (June 19th 2020) over 19,000 requests
were processed by the Curfew Time team, 4300 of which via
the automated online form.

I
am confident and delighted that Government’s decisions, strategy
and sacrifice have paid off.  On Sunday we will be lifting
the vast majority of the restrictions that were required to get us
here.

We
have avoided the tragedy that has played out in so many other
countries, but we need to remain vigilant.   Now that
curfew, and with it Curfew Time comes to an end, I hope you will join
me in commending the Curfew Time team for the vital role they have
played in our country’s immensely successful strategy to prevent,
suppress and control the spread of Covid-19 across
these beloved Cayman Islands.  

Team
Members in alphabetical order: Andrea
Fa’amoe, Ashlyn Goubault-Ebanks, Evana Martinez ,Kendra Okonski,
Shenneque Seales, Shushan O’Conor, Stacie Sybersma, Tichina
Rickfield, Tristaca Ebanks; Volunteers:
Felecia
Paddyfoot, Delia Hydes, Althea Edwards-Boothe and Joanna Bond.

Honorarium
for Public Service COVID Responders

This
week, our community celebrates major strides to contain and suppress
the spread of the COVID-19 virus locally. As we prepare to enter
Level 2 (Light Suppression) and to regain the ability to socialise
more freely, it is important to pause and recognise the tremendous
efforts of those who served on the front line to make this milestone
possible.

As
Premier, I want to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the
men and women within the public service, who have toiled relentlessly
to carry out the Government’s policy decisions and to faithfully
serve the people of the Cayman Islands. It is due in large part, to
their courage and professionalism that it has been possible to
maintain steady progress in the fight against COVID-19.

Just
over three months ago, as the pandemic swept towards our shores we
called upon the men and women within our public service to see these
Islands through this crisis, which is of unrivalled magnitude
certainly in the history of these islands (for the past 100 years).
They mobilized swiftly to activate our emergency operations and
implement Government’s policies to slow the spread of the deadly
pandemic. Even when very little was known about the virus and how it
spread, Customs and Border Control Officers welcomed thousands of
returning residents and bid farewell to guests.

As
one group stepped up and did their jobs, other teams mobilised to
address the next string of challenges as large numbers of students
and residents began flocking home to take refuge and anxieties rose
within the community that this might hasten the spread of the virus
locally. Teams gathered and within 24 hours, went through iterations
of innovative solutions. The result allowed us to temporarily
transform hotels into isolation facilities, thereby relieving the
pressures on families who were receiving loved ones from abroad, and
allowing public health to focus their monitoring and testing
capabilities to highly centralised locations.

Where
the virus had breached our borders and was silently threatening to
replicate itself in every district across our community, diverse
public health professionals joined forces with the HSA, and began the
laborious process of contact tracing which has to date resulted in
the daily monitoring of almost 200 COVID positive persons, contact
tracing for hundreds more who were potentially exposed, and raised
the alert for those persons who were either unable or unwilling to
maintain the quarantine.

Elsewhere,
teams who had never previously never worked together, volunteered in
“Operation Bring ‘Em Home”, and met our citizens at the
airports and cared for at least two weeks at a time at the isolation
facilities.

These
volunteers worked in shifts, sometimes through the night, to feed,
clean, and support the welfare of more than 600 residents who passed
through these facilities in first three months. The needs of each
occupant were known and addressed, ably led by professionals from the
Department of Children and Family Services who are well versed in the
procedures of shelter management.

We
give thanks to almighty God for sparing us the full brunt of the
virus, as many COVID positive cases were asymptomatic. However, we
must not forget that there were those among us whose symptoms
required medical interventions, either in the form of outpatient
treatment in the newly formed flu clinic or by full blown admission
to the dedicated respiratory unit. The HSA quickly transformed their
normal operations to combat COVID-19, including the addition of a
dedicated flu hotline to identify symptoms which warranted closer
scrutiny.

With
the assistance of project management and supply chain experts,
satellite medical facilities were established, thereby expanding our
capabilities if the volume of persons becoming ill should require
Cayman to increase its medical footprint. These wins were made, by
working closely with civil society from our church community and
voluntary organisations.

When
images from abroad flooded our shores of medical professionals
combatting COVID without even the basic protective gear necessary to
keep them safe, the Cabinet took comfort in the daily reports
received throughout the crisis of how locally, PPE inventories were
being managed and were being regularly augmented even at the height
of the crisis.

When
global supplies were at critically low levels and countries were
confiscating medical equipment transiting their ports, local teams
worked throughout the days and nights to secure adequate supplies not
only to protect our doctors and nurses on the front line, but equally
to distribute more than 50 thousand disposable and reusable masks
across all three Islands so that every resident had some basic
equipment needed to protect themselves and each other, as they
experienced larger groups in public places.

Every
medical and scientific expert has said the key to combating COVID,
particularly when it presents as an invisible, asymptomatic intruder,
is Testing, Testing, Testing. HSA’s Public Health teams joined more
recently by medical professionals from of our private sector, have
undertaken more than 20 thousand COVID screenings, almost one-third
of our population. The Cayman Islands now ranks third for testing per
capita and is currently expanding capabilities to also conduct
antibody testing.

Our
police officers adopted extended shifts to enforce curfews by night,
maintain the peace by day to instill confidence that essential
activities like grocery shopping could be safely and pragmatically
managed. Police officers joined side by side by CBC Officers and
volunteer special constables, interacted with hundreds and sometimes
thousands of persons each day.

Some
of these interactions came at great personal risk, when for example
they were called upon to assist Public Health teams with breaches in
COVID quarantines. They did not have the luxury of an established
schedule for responding to COVID emergencies, but rather made
themselves available as required to keep the public safe.

Whilst
contending with unprecedented demands for their services, some the
men and women on the front line have also had to make a difficult
call to isolate away from their families. By reducing the risk of
accidental transmission to their own households, they maintained a
singular focus to holding the frontline and keeping Cayman safe.

Our
communications teams, worked tirelessly to inform the public of the
latest medical and policy advice, to reach the public in their
preferred communication channel from daily press briefings to
continuous social media feeds, and to speak to each segment of our
population in their own voice enlisting the cooperation of all from
young children to our elderly. They also battled and quickly
addressed rumours which disseminated false and harmful news, and
instead offered the public reliable sources of medical and scientific
advice.

The
National Emergency Operations Centre, which has been operational for
over 100 days, will cease daily activities today and shift monitoring
and maintaining readiness for rapid response as required. Many on
frontline have gone without leave during the height of this crisis,
responding to calls all hours of the day and night. The public
service has itself not been immune to virus, with some on the team
contracting the virus and facing the uphill process of quarantine and
recovery. Yet, as soon as circumstances allowed, they resumed their
posts driven by a shared purpose to “Make Lives Better”.

Although
COVID-19 has dominated our discussions and decisions for over 100
days, it is not the only crisis our Country has faced in 2020. Since
January of this year, the public service has responded to a major
earthquake and tsunami warning, landfill fire, and, of course,
COVID-19. 1 June also saw the start of the Atlantic hurricane season
and we know not, what that will bring.

While
we have so far been able to navigate these calamities by instituting
sound policies, making swift decisions and enacting laws and
regulations -- all of those measures would have been for nothing had
it not been for the consistent and unwavering service provided by our
frontline workers, who implemented the government’s policies,
decisions and regulations, and saved lives by doing so. These are the
capable men and women that we have relied on to ensure a successful
response to COVID thus far, and the people we will continue to rely
on for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and the hurricane
season.

Having
provided a glimpse of the heroic efforts of our COVID-19 Responders,
the Government would like to recognise the remarkable effort by
making a one-time honorarium payment for those who bore the brunt of
the COVID-response. Those public servants who helped to combat
COVID-19 by delivering essential services during the height of the
crisis, will receive a one-off payment of $1,000.

An
additional payment of $500 will be made to those public servants
whose work, in combating the spread of the virus, required them to
work in the most hazardous conditions including frequent contacts
with high volumes of persons or close contact with persons known or
suspected to be COVID-positive.

My
Cabinet was happy to approve the one-off payment of an honorarium for
COVID Responders within the public service. We only wish it could
have been more. This stipend will be paid by participating agencies
and within the civil service, will be borne from pre-existing HR
budgets and savings realised in personnel costs across the Civil
Service. There will be no increase in overall civil service budget.
The Deputy Governor and Chief Officers will manage the programme and
I wish to again extend my sincere appreciation for the tireless
efforts of the teams who have responded.

We
have seen countries much larger, expertise, than ours, struggle to
mobilise an effective response. I would remind our emergency
responders, Cayman is not yet out of the woods, and we continue to
rely upon our civil service to keep Cayman safe.

Again,
I would like to thank those on the frontline of our COVID-19 response
for all of their remarkable and tireless efforts. You are indeed
heroes. As we enter Level Two (Light Suppression), we are grateful
for the contributions of so many who have made this progress
possible. Thank you!

USA
flights for July, August

Government
is finalising the details of evacuation flights to the US planned for
July and August.

The
Ministry of Employment and Border Control reminds students, and
parents, heading to school in the USA this fall, to register online
via www.exploregov.ky/travel,
if they have not yet done so. Persons who have registered will be
contacted directly about flight availability and seating as soon as
details are finalised.