An Improvement: Seven out of Ten

 

I thought yesterdays press conference was an improvement on the previous one, and here's why.

On Monday, further measures were "under consideration" but just two days later, they had come out. That is a vast improvement in response times. Now we are promised information on "household bubbles" for Christmas "soon". Let's hope they keep up the momentum.

Actually the guidance for islanders at high risk should be the strategy for ALL islanders. This has a "bubble" idea already built into it:

• Choose a small number of family or friends, where needed, from outside of their household, that they choose not to maintain physical distancing with. This should be the same, small consistent group.
• Maintain a 2m distance from people outside their household wherever possible, other than this small consistent group.
• Avoid visits to other people’s homes, and limit having visitors into their own home, unless it is for delivering care or other essential services, or it is within the small consistent number of chosen friends or family.

What could be simpler? I've been using this strategy since we came out of lockdown, even though it wasn't official guidance. Why take risks? And Guernsey has shown that small bubbles work.

The lockdown on hospitality came after Gary Burgess quite rightly pinpointed on Monday that was where the biggest spikes were coming from. So that was taking on board criticism and acting on it quickly.

As John Le Fondre stated, there's a balancing act between acting swiftly and allowing some time for people to make arrangements. This was Wednesday night. It leaves one day and night before it comes into place, which hopefully will not mean idiots going out for one last binge before Christmas. But that timescale is far better than the adjustments on the test regime for flights - to self-isolate until the result of the first test - which took just over a week to bring into force. And by cutting off before Friday evening, it hopefully will prevent the pre-lockdown binge I mentioned.

There's no doubt that given the better protocols - and there are extremely robust ones - mean that doctors and dentists can continue. Also hairdressers, barbers, chiropractors etc etc now have robust coronavirus measures in place. Even if a household lockdown was needed, it need not mean closing those establishments.

Another plus - often not noticed - is that these press conferences as well as being on YouTube and Facebook simultaneously - are now held around 7 pm in the evening - a time when everyone can pretty well access them, rather than on a morning when folk are working. I do think credit should be given for that. 

So why just 7/10? I do think that some measures - mandatory mask wearing, social distancing to two metres, business having to have contact tracing - could have come in a lot earlier rather than just "strong guidance". The reduction to 20 people for gatherings should have come sooner, and I know of several cases where multiple bookings at restaurants were made to get round restrictions. That shows the need for the current circuit-breaker, because as always, there are idiots who seem to think they can get away with it. 

The exemptions system for masks does not seem as robust as they are for, example, not having to wear seat belts because of medical reasons. And the situation with hospitality was clear on Monday from the charts, so the decision could have been made earlier - maybe on Monday for Wednesday rather than losing a few days, remembering the virus spread expands exponentially.

A friend in the UK expressed amazement at how rapidly things had spiralled out of control. They are just coming out of lockdown, and can have 40 people in a church, where Jersey is now restricted to 20. More is slowly, but safely, opening up. And here everything is closing down.