Travel Guidelines
"Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" is a very old cliché, but like all clichés, it bears the ring of truth. The number of travel cases testing positive for Covid-19 has increased considerably, especially when you consider the number of arrivals has been falling. Now - before the virus gets loose in the community again - is the time for tightening restrictions to isolate until after the first test result, even if a "green" travel designation applies.
Leave it until next week, and it could be too late, and the rapidity in which it spreads throughout the community will mean another lockdown looming. And Melbourne shows how complacency - and we have plenty of that - laxness - and there is no mandatory contact tracing in cafes / restaurants - makes an environment ripe for spread. They had it pretty well beaten, and then suddenly it took off like a rocket. Ever tighter lockdown measures, and curfews - do we really want that?
Herd immunity and students
Only yesterday I heard someone say that they should concentrate on shielding the vulnerable, and not worry about students getting the virus, because they didn't get it badly. Try telling that to the Jersey student in isolation in a campus at Liverpool University, testing positive, and saying she had never felt so ill in her life.
But apart from that - asymptomatic spreaders can carry the disease into even what appears the most hermetically sealed environment. Testing everyone who came into contact with the President worked as a strategy for 6 months - and then it failed dismally. When you can't tell who has it or not, and when symptoms don't always appear, it can get everywhere.
Incidentally, Dr Muscat's notion of locking down care homes only works if the care home staff don't leave the premises. Most care homes were already locking down in mid-March, and now there are stringent guidelines and limited times for visitors - so the obvious route of transmission - which has been the case in the UK and here - is via care home staff.
The case of the students shows something interesting. However much they tried to distance, it seemed campus halls of accommodation were ideal grounds for spreading the virus, whereas those students living off campus were much less likely to get it. There's a lesson there too for blocks of flats with communal staircases, lifts and common areas, especially where large numbers of people are involved.
Education Minister Can't Add Up
On BBC Radio Jersey, both the presenter and Education Minister Tracy Valois kept referring to the long time taken - 7 years - for the new Les Quennevais School to be built. That's actually not correct. was after the election in October 2014 that Rod Bryans started the search for a suitable site, a consultaion followed in September 2015 on 3 sites, and despite setbacks on the first plans, they were passed by the end of 2017, and work started in 2018 before the elections in May that year. My maths may be poor, but I make that 6 years from getting the ball rolling (2014) to opening (2020).
Poor Maintenance
I see that the Head of Rouge Bouillon School is complaining about a serious lack of maintenance to the school over the last few years. This is a pattern I've seen before with Housing. Whenever an austerity programme of cuts is implemented, cutting maintenance is the easy option. Terry Le Main - as Housing President, and Housing Minister - presided over many years lack of maintenance which Andium had to make good after taking over the housing stock. Let's hope the Education Department are not making the same mistake, but it certainly looks that way.
"Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" is a very old cliché, but like all clichés, it bears the ring of truth. The number of travel cases testing positive for Covid-19 has increased considerably, especially when you consider the number of arrivals has been falling. Now - before the virus gets loose in the community again - is the time for tightening restrictions to isolate until after the first test result, even if a "green" travel designation applies.
Leave it until next week, and it could be too late, and the rapidity in which it spreads throughout the community will mean another lockdown looming. And Melbourne shows how complacency - and we have plenty of that - laxness - and there is no mandatory contact tracing in cafes / restaurants - makes an environment ripe for spread. They had it pretty well beaten, and then suddenly it took off like a rocket. Ever tighter lockdown measures, and curfews - do we really want that?
Herd immunity and students
Only yesterday I heard someone say that they should concentrate on shielding the vulnerable, and not worry about students getting the virus, because they didn't get it badly. Try telling that to the Jersey student in isolation in a campus at Liverpool University, testing positive, and saying she had never felt so ill in her life.
But apart from that - asymptomatic spreaders can carry the disease into even what appears the most hermetically sealed environment. Testing everyone who came into contact with the President worked as a strategy for 6 months - and then it failed dismally. When you can't tell who has it or not, and when symptoms don't always appear, it can get everywhere.
Incidentally, Dr Muscat's notion of locking down care homes only works if the care home staff don't leave the premises. Most care homes were already locking down in mid-March, and now there are stringent guidelines and limited times for visitors - so the obvious route of transmission - which has been the case in the UK and here - is via care home staff.
The case of the students shows something interesting. However much they tried to distance, it seemed campus halls of accommodation were ideal grounds for spreading the virus, whereas those students living off campus were much less likely to get it. There's a lesson there too for blocks of flats with communal staircases, lifts and common areas, especially where large numbers of people are involved.
Education Minister Can't Add Up
On BBC Radio Jersey, both the presenter and Education Minister Tracy Valois kept referring to the long time taken - 7 years - for the new Les Quennevais School to be built. That's actually not correct. was after the election in October 2014 that Rod Bryans started the search for a suitable site, a consultaion followed in September 2015 on 3 sites, and despite setbacks on the first plans, they were passed by the end of 2017, and work started in 2018 before the elections in May that year. My maths may be poor, but I make that 6 years from getting the ball rolling (2014) to opening (2020).
Poor Maintenance
I see that the Head of Rouge Bouillon School is complaining about a serious lack of maintenance to the school over the last few years. This is a pattern I've seen before with Housing. Whenever an austerity programme of cuts is implemented, cutting maintenance is the easy option. Terry Le Main - as Housing President, and Housing Minister - presided over many years lack of maintenance which Andium had to make good after taking over the housing stock. Let's hope the Education Department are not making the same mistake, but it certainly looks that way.
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