Bailiwick responds well to lockdown measures

Craig Senior said that the island was still trying to understand the legality of the situation regarding giving people their money back, if their trip had to be cancelled. ‘All our terms and conditions clearly stipulate to take out insurance,’ he said.

‘We’re trying to work with our insurers and the government. We’re just asking for a bit of patience.’

Herm stopped commercial sailings earlier this week, but he said that several people had since been asked to leave the island after coming over on private vessels.

He said another reason for the lockdown was they did not want to stretch the emergency services by having them being made to come over and rescue guests. He paid tribute to the service that Herm received.

Even if the lockdown is lifted in a few weeks’ time, Mr Senior said he was resigned to there not being a visitor season this year.

‘If by some miracle we do grab a few weeks, it’s going to be a very different Herm this year,’ he said.

All seasonal staff had been cancelled, so if the island does reopen it will be with drastically reduced services.

Sark’s Policy & Finance Committee chairman Peter La Trobe-Bateman said the island had responded well to calls for social distancing, although when the pubs reduced their opening hours there were reports of house parties taking place.

‘There have been issues. The [Avenue] shop is quite small and when they reduced their opening hours a lot of people gathered at the same time.’

As a result, both the island’s grocery stores have closed to customers and will be delivering instead.

The night the Bailiwick-wide lockdown was announced, the island’s Pandemic Emergency Committee identified and contacted the island’s key workers.

There have been no cases of Covid-19 in Sark so far, although a visiting worker from the UK has been in isolation after showing symptoms of the disease: ‘He’s been waiting a week and a half for the test results to come back, but the doctor doesn’t think it’s Covid-19 because he stopped showing symptoms very quickly.’

Sark is prepared, said Mr La Trobe-Bateman: ‘All the ambulance staff have protective equipment and the Flying Christine is there.’

In Alderney, islanders had accepted the need to change, said States President William Tate: ‘We had some initial challenges about getting the message [of social distancing] across,’ he said.

But he had been delivering a message every morning on the island’s radio station, Quay FM.

‘All these decisions [by the Civil Contingencies Authority] are made and implemented and as soon as the information is available we act on it,’ said Mr Tate.

There had been some issues with young people not complying with the health guidelines but he said that the message had now got through.

He made a special broadcast on Tuesday evening, shortly after the lockdown measures were announced. He said the island was quite quiet now: ‘But from our perspective it’s a good thing. Most people are respecting the advice.

‘We’re a very tight-knit community and we will face these challenges together and we will support each other and protect each other.’