Why Jersey Needs Social Bubbles
Some definitions
Social bubbles are seen as the step forward towards easing lockdowns. Vicky McKeever reports that:
“A social bubble entails allowing people to see a small group of others outside their own household. This has already been implemented in New Zealand and is said to have been considered in Belgium.”
“A social bubble entails allowing people to form a group with a select number of people they are allowed to see socially outside their own household.”
Outside, doesn't mean, by the way, outside in the physical sense, but inside!
There are dangers in this - as experts have warned, but that applies mainly to countries where cases of Coronavirus are still very active, and an exponential surge could be caused by the increased interactions. That is why they will almost certainly be more successful in jurisdictions where the virus has been successfully contained, and where there is a chance of eliminating it from the resident population.
Where Social Bubbles work best
New Zealand and Australia are prime examples: tight border controls, with 14 day quarantine on any arrivals (which are limited anyway) and an early lockdown which has led to a prospect of eliminating the virus within the borders almost completely, as well as good testing and contact tracing go hand in hand, otherwise we just isolate people further.
From this week, New Zealanders will be free to slightly extend their bubbles of contact to include close family, caregivers and those living in isolation - so long as they are living in the same town or city.
The case of Guernsey
And looking at declining cases, so are Jersey and Guernsey. That is undoubtably why Guernsey has decided to go with the idea of social bubbles and indoor interaction. As the Guernsey press reports:
“In Guernsey the concept of social bubbles will allow people from different households to pair up and meet indoors – perhaps allowing different generations of families to see one another for the first time in weeks. Grandparents will hug their grandchildren again. Or maybe those in relationships who do not live together will be able to visit one another again. But the mixing of households must take place indoors, not outdoors.”
Guernsey have just improved their testing further – and have good contact tracing – and the idea of social bubbles is one which can gradually expand as time goes on. It’s a progressive strategy and one that appreciates that closer contact is beneficial for mental health.
As Guernsey press reports:
“Guernsey households were able to socialise with members of one other home from Saturday and this may be increased in phase three if phase two holds out for another two and a half weeks. Public Health director Dr Nicola Brink confirmed this was the case. ‘We are looking at expanding our social bubble,’ she said. ‘So adding more households to the bubble, we can work out how many more households you can add to the bubble at that stage. ‘Again, instead of opening everything up we’re saying well maybe another couple of households can come into your bubble and your bubble becomes a bigger household bubble and that just starts increasing social connectivity.’”
Social Bubbles and Rt
When making their decisions, scientists and policymakers look to a key metric known as the effective reproduction rate (Rt) - the rate at which the virus is spreading among the population. Guernsey and Jersey currently seem to have a rate below 1.
Social bubbles are a logical way to emerge from isolation. If you limit the people you spend time with, you naturally limit the chances of spreading the coronavirus widely.
The Mental Health Benefits
In a new study led by Oxford University, “Social network-based distancing strategies to flatten the
COVID-19 curve in a post-lockdown world” they comment that:
“While social distancing and isolation has been introduced widely, more moderate contact reduction policies could become desirable owing to adverse social, psychological, and economic consequences of a complete or near-complete lockdown.”
“ Our models demonstrate that while social distancing measures clearly do flatten the curve, strategic reduction of contact can strongly increase their efficiency, introducing the possibility of allowing some social contact while keeping risks low. Limiting interaction to a few repeated contacts emerges as the most effective strategy”
One of the authors, Per Block, said that forcing people to stay at home for such long periods of time wasn't sustainable and brought about problems of its own, including mental health issues.
"There must be a middle ground between all of us staying at home and all of us meeting the people we want in the ways we want to," he told CNN.
"Our main aim here is to give people guidance on how they can structure their social surroundings so that hopefully in a year's time we are there, and not that people at some point just give up completely on social distancing, and that we are back in a second wave by the end of the year and have to start this whole staying at home business all over again."
What happens if you don't have social bubbles?
Jersey has seen more and more cases of people flouting social distancing rules. Instead of social bubbles indoors allowing closer proximity and better for mental health all round, they have social distancing with 2 friends outside. But if you don't have social bubbles, the increased mental health pressure will probably lead people to flout the social distancing outside rules anyway. Social bubbles would ease that and lead to less violations.
Some definitions
Social bubbles are seen as the step forward towards easing lockdowns. Vicky McKeever reports that:
“A social bubble entails allowing people to see a small group of others outside their own household. This has already been implemented in New Zealand and is said to have been considered in Belgium.”
“A social bubble entails allowing people to form a group with a select number of people they are allowed to see socially outside their own household.”
Outside, doesn't mean, by the way, outside in the physical sense, but inside!
There are dangers in this - as experts have warned, but that applies mainly to countries where cases of Coronavirus are still very active, and an exponential surge could be caused by the increased interactions. That is why they will almost certainly be more successful in jurisdictions where the virus has been successfully contained, and where there is a chance of eliminating it from the resident population.
Where Social Bubbles work best
New Zealand and Australia are prime examples: tight border controls, with 14 day quarantine on any arrivals (which are limited anyway) and an early lockdown which has led to a prospect of eliminating the virus within the borders almost completely, as well as good testing and contact tracing go hand in hand, otherwise we just isolate people further.
From this week, New Zealanders will be free to slightly extend their bubbles of contact to include close family, caregivers and those living in isolation - so long as they are living in the same town or city.
The case of Guernsey
And looking at declining cases, so are Jersey and Guernsey. That is undoubtably why Guernsey has decided to go with the idea of social bubbles and indoor interaction. As the Guernsey press reports:
“In Guernsey the concept of social bubbles will allow people from different households to pair up and meet indoors – perhaps allowing different generations of families to see one another for the first time in weeks. Grandparents will hug their grandchildren again. Or maybe those in relationships who do not live together will be able to visit one another again. But the mixing of households must take place indoors, not outdoors.”
Guernsey have just improved their testing further – and have good contact tracing – and the idea of social bubbles is one which can gradually expand as time goes on. It’s a progressive strategy and one that appreciates that closer contact is beneficial for mental health.
As Guernsey press reports:
“Guernsey households were able to socialise with members of one other home from Saturday and this may be increased in phase three if phase two holds out for another two and a half weeks. Public Health director Dr Nicola Brink confirmed this was the case. ‘We are looking at expanding our social bubble,’ she said. ‘So adding more households to the bubble, we can work out how many more households you can add to the bubble at that stage. ‘Again, instead of opening everything up we’re saying well maybe another couple of households can come into your bubble and your bubble becomes a bigger household bubble and that just starts increasing social connectivity.’”
Social Bubbles and Rt
When making their decisions, scientists and policymakers look to a key metric known as the effective reproduction rate (Rt) - the rate at which the virus is spreading among the population. Guernsey and Jersey currently seem to have a rate below 1.
Social bubbles are a logical way to emerge from isolation. If you limit the people you spend time with, you naturally limit the chances of spreading the coronavirus widely.
The Mental Health Benefits
In a new study led by Oxford University, “Social network-based distancing strategies to flatten the
COVID-19 curve in a post-lockdown world” they comment that:
“While social distancing and isolation has been introduced widely, more moderate contact reduction policies could become desirable owing to adverse social, psychological, and economic consequences of a complete or near-complete lockdown.”
“ Our models demonstrate that while social distancing measures clearly do flatten the curve, strategic reduction of contact can strongly increase their efficiency, introducing the possibility of allowing some social contact while keeping risks low. Limiting interaction to a few repeated contacts emerges as the most effective strategy”
One of the authors, Per Block, said that forcing people to stay at home for such long periods of time wasn't sustainable and brought about problems of its own, including mental health issues.
"There must be a middle ground between all of us staying at home and all of us meeting the people we want in the ways we want to," he told CNN.
"Our main aim here is to give people guidance on how they can structure their social surroundings so that hopefully in a year's time we are there, and not that people at some point just give up completely on social distancing, and that we are back in a second wave by the end of the year and have to start this whole staying at home business all over again."
What happens if you don't have social bubbles?
Jersey has seen more and more cases of people flouting social distancing rules. Instead of social bubbles indoors allowing closer proximity and better for mental health all round, they have social distancing with 2 friends outside. But if you don't have social bubbles, the increased mental health pressure will probably lead people to flout the social distancing outside rules anyway. Social bubbles would ease that and lead to less violations.
What’s the answer? The heavy hand of the law, or would a change of strategy to allow “social bubbles” really be a much better way to go? Would it harm Jersey to take a leaf out of Guernsey's book?
References
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/coronavirus-social-bubbles-might-not-work-in-easing-lockdowns.html
https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/05/06/we-are-looking-at-expanding-our-social-bubble/
https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-05-01/blog-there-will-be-no-liberation-day-from-coronavirus/
References
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/coronavirus-social-bubbles-might-not-work-in-easing-lockdowns.html
https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/05/06/we-are-looking-at-expanding-our-social-bubble/
https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2020-05-01/blog-there-will-be-no-liberation-day-from-coronavirus/
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