Should We Go, or Should We Stay?

[Rob]

With some 3000 new positive cases island wide in the last 5 days, there has only been 30 new hospitalizations. So that is good news of a hospitalization rate of 1%. Similar to regular respiratory viral infection hospitalization rates pre-Covid based on 2017-2018.

This closely follows the South African experience with Omicron, and we may be looking at the end of this pandemic as we have known it.

Keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood, pray, GET VAXXED....

For those curious, the parish of Westmoreland where Negril is located has had 65 new cases of the 3000. The Resilient Corridor must be working as the average number of cases per parish should be over 200.

[Lax1724]

As much as it pains me, I am going to keep politics out of this response. I will simply state that I just returned last night from a phenomenal week at the Beach House Condos (my 7th trip there). Last year, we bailed at the very last second and ended up having to unpack. I would not wish that on anyone. This year, there are a lot less unknowns with the virus. From what I can tell, Rob clearly has taken the time to research information on his own (as opposed to having it fed to him by twitter and Facebook) and is doing his best to get people to think critically and not succumb to panic.
Everyone is different but personally, I was more afraid of covid killing my vacation than I was of it killing me. We were tested on Christmas Eve and when we got our negative results, we packed. The beach seemed a little less crowded than previous trips but still very vibrant. If anything, there may have been less higglers than before but the regular vendors (pork, lobster, coco bread, fruit, juice) were out in force. I love explaining to people that have never been to Negril than you can get up in the morning and go to the beach and within an hour have jerk pork, followed by coco bread and washed down with fresh squeezed juice without leaving your beach chair (unless you decide to stay at an AI). A Jamaican by the name of Dru opened up a little eating spot right next to the BHC and makes incredible patties. I had to get up out of my chair to order it but, he delivers it to you. We went out to eat at Ivan's and Kuyaba and the crowds were decent. New Year's eve was crazy spectacular, live music up and down the beach and lanterns and fireworks lit up the sky.
I think masks are just plain dumb and avoid them at all costs. The only time I was required was at Times Square and Hi-Lo. Both places took our temperature too which I was fine with especially at Hi-Lo because it's inside and there are more Jamaicans who probably haven't been tested. On Saturday, a nurse came to our balcony and tested and we had results in 15 minutes.
Sorry if that was long winded and not entirely deft of politics but I thought the topic of this thread was important and that a response from someone that just got back could help people to decide.