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You may find this illuminating
some LA medics saying lockdown is not the right solution, Sweden and Norway had it right and properly justifying it all

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I think it's mainly Sweden that has forgone the brutal route. My son lives in Norway and he said it's not as tough as here in Cayman but there are restrictions all the same. He works at a recycling place, and says that empty liquor-bottles are coming in at a much higher rate than they used to do!

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We've been told that our airport won't open till the end of August. It is going to be the Devil's own job reviving the tourism industry - from scratch, pretty much.

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Things can be fairly fluid, im suspecting that some places will start earlier, some later. Of more interest - what will the rules and restrictions be? Im expecting mandatory testing pre flight, masks, 14 days quarantine both ends as has been announced in the uk. This will kill any tourist activity dead and will die out by the end of the year or earlier IMHO when countries discover the airlines simply wont fly with those restrictions.

Another biggie, which countries will open to whome? Im expecting a ban on people who have recently been in hotspots like DomRep, Europe, US, so Cabibbean Air and LIAT will have fly unopposed for a while.

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Oh we had our first virus related deaths, hundreds of them... The flour mill employees were spreading it, so they were closed down 'its not a punishment, we are doing it for the good of the country' (nobody thought?) So apart from no local flour, no animal feed, so chickens starved to death while the govt floundered about trying to import animal food.

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The cruise industry is effectively over at least for a while in Cayman. The tourism minister touted 'staycations' to help bring money into the economy. On an island this small that just isn't realistic. The price of things doesn't help for a start. At least in the UK you can actually go somewhere different and see different things. Why would I pay to stay at a beach resort when I have the beach on my doorstep for free? I see tough times ahead for Cayman.

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Teresting updates -

Caricom is restarting regional flights - borders are mooted to open next month, but only between caricom states - and it is likely that a few will be excluded. Protocols and testing regimes to be published, but they are serious about regional travel.

Grenada will soon be reopening to yachties, but with new fees for - , testing and quarantine onboard mandatory.

Our 24/7 curfew is now only overnight - and may by default have just been removed. Shops open 7 days, beaches in the mornings, food establishments for takeaway, comstruction restarting this week.

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It seems that your people know what they're doing. Ours are more interested in playing Winston Churchill ("We shall fight them on the beaches...") than saving our Islands. It seems that the British medical establishment is running things, and that our local authorities are too scared to argue with them. Why they're scared, is as yet not known.

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St Lucia is reopening its airport - to initially the US exclusively on 4th of June, my flabber is gasted!

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Wow! The latest from our rulers is that our Airport (and seaports too) may not even open until after 31st August!

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When they see all islands reopen - mostly regionally - next month - bet they rush a change in

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I struggled to get my head around that one too.

St Lucia says that it will allow air passengers in who have been (just) previously shown to be negative for the virus. There will be no checks on actual arrival. That means for it to work St Lucia would be expected to carry out similar (pre-boarding) checks at or just prior to departure to meet the needs of other islands in particular (as you previously stated) AND ALSO THE US???

St Lucia have stated that if their arrangement indicates that they are letting the virus in in numbers, they will shut it down.

One can only guess that the US are NOT expecting that passengers from the Caribbean go into quarantine upon arrival as is the case right now for the UK and which BA have stated rules out any restart of flights at this juncture. SO it has to be the US first, presumably also as a tester.

One would also have to guess that the St Lucia decision was in part based upon the fact that US visitors are typically SHORT stayers so if they get sick upon arrival that can simply bog off back home no problem.

This was the same rationale from certain cruise experts for their suggestion that in future, cruise ship itineraries might be just to ONE or two ports in the Caribbean to ease cross border regulatory and potential virus stress and to ease departure through the destination's airport pronto if a passenger gets sick.

At least St Lucia has a plan which is much more than you can say for the UK Government at this point - I use the word government loosely.

Pondering all of this last evening, I did come to the conclusion that aside from the buffet (meal) culture in Caribbean hotels, Islands such as Grenada and St Lucia and even Barbados are fairly well-suited to dealing with the virus issues in the service sector, such as social distancing and open style dining, what with beaches and beach bars. Far more so than other mass market destinations. This is all helped by the EXCLUSIVE nature of many hotels in the region which are high-price and high personal service venues. In the US and UK, restaurant businesses are rolling over and closing for good as they just can't see opening and being viable with all of the requirements and normal rents.

Off course the main problem is in getting here.

Opening up your market to US visitors first in a Covid-19 situation does make one think that hoteliers need to be very careful with their exclusions to avoid ambulance chasers if something goes wrong.

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That is a sore one for me. I had hols booked back home in June but to wait until September is hard going. If even then! At least they've opened the beaches again!

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After the emergency, some of the restraints and forced changes will continue, others won't. I'm interested in members' opinions on which ones will become part of "the new normal". It's a big topic, but we have to start somewhere!

I can see online ordering and home deliveries becoming permanently more popular, and social-distancing might hang around in the form of limits placed on the number of customers in each bar and restaurant. Home-schooling might well become more popular, and clerical employees might be encouraged to work from home at least for part of the time. Public (customers') rest-rooms in shops might become less available; clothes shops might be a bit more wary about customers trying before they buy.

What do you reckon?

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I think human memory is short, and we are by nature sociable. These things were all in place early last century during the spanish flu, and all disappeared quickly. The move to online is a natural evolution that works for some markets but not others. We will soon accept this as another ‘flu’ that people die of each winter, and make jokes about the new cough. Its prevalence will of course decline as immunity grows. This bug would have been zika or chikungunya, if those bugs could have exited the tropics to invade the crowds in the temperate zones... Do we carry bug spray now because of those? We know somewhere soneone has it, but we have, generally, herd immunity.