(CMR) During the current climate of COVID-19 shutdowns and closures, many have questions about how things will be operating.
Some employers are making staff take a vacation and sick leave if they are closing. Many have questions about this and whilst CMR will attempt to get answers we were hoping that the general public could provide some feedback also.
We also hope that this format will trigger a wider discussion with the elected officials so that they can respond to the questions below.
- Do businesses have business interruption insurance for catastrophic events like this?
- What happens to employees after they have used up their vacation and sick leave? How will they pay their bills?
- Are renters able to waive rental income if banks waive mortgage payments?
- Will the government/employees allow expat employees to leave the island if they wish essentially taking a break in their work permit?
- If employees are getting rolled over into countries that now have closed ports of entry will the government be allowing them to remain on island?
- Some business establishments are still not adhering to the 50 people public gathering limit and are getting “creative” about how they are bypassing it stating it's “per business” so if they have more than one business located in the same building each can have 50 people. How is the public gathering defined?
- Who is enforcing the public gathering limit for those businesses that are not adhering to it? Who should be called to report such violations?
- What about hotels that have buffets that upwards of 100 people could be attending?
- What is happening in terms of prisoners? CMR heard that anyone sentenced to a few months may be released to alleviate the pressure on the prison service but there has been no official confirmation or indication of that.
- What does the government have in place to ensure that workers are not penalized if they have to stay home to take care of children that are now out of school because of the shutdown of all schools?
- Will the airports be closed? We understand that Cayman Airways staff who are visibly ill at the airport are not being permitted to go home.
- Can the government arrange to have government websites zero-rated so that everyone can have access to them without using their data allowance or persons without data can still access vital information during this emergency period?
- Will provisions be made for school children to be able to collect breakfast/lunch from government canteens during this extended school closure? For some children, this is their only meal for the day.
- When will banks introduce the new interest rates? The USA Federal Reserve slashed interest rates yesterday when will that be done locally? Will it take the usual month that the banks decide on?
- Will government be helping ex-pats with rent and mortgage relief?
- Why are we allowing British Airways to continue flying in given the number of outbreaks there and in Europe?
- What are the contingency plans for the three hospitals should they reach capacity with COVID-19 patients?
- Are parents still to pay school fees for the time that schools are mandatorily closed?
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