Prepare to think of lockdown lasting a month, islanders told

Thanking the team effort behind the work being done to contain and delay the spread of coronavirus, while at today's [Wednesday] media briefing, the panel of States members consisting of Health & Social Care president Heidi Soulsby, Public Health director Dr Nicola Brink, HSC medical director Dr Peter Rabey, States chief executive Paul Whitfield, and Deputy St Pier, heard that lockdown could go on longer than the initial two weeks set on Wednesday last week.

Civil Contingencies Authority chairman Deputy St Pier said it was likely to be extended.

‘I can’t give a different answer on Monday to the same question, which was we will keep it under review,’ he said.

‘It’s going to be very much informed by the Public Health experience and the advice which comes based on the evidence. It’s still too early to say I’m afraid.

‘We did say, of course, it was an initial period of two weeks but the island should prepare for it to be longer and should prepare to think of it as a 28-day period.

‘That advice hasn’t changed. In a sense, nothing has changed from the original notification.

‘But we will obviously keep people informed, as our own thinking changes, we will absolutely keep people informed.’

During the public briefing there were a number of plans encouraging islanders to take part in to find out more information about what people were currently doing.

Mr Whitfield said a community monitoring tool app had been created to help those in the medical community find out more about what is happening in the community each day.

‘To help us understand what is happening out in the community we have launched an online community monitoring system,’ he said.

‘This will tell us, amongst other things, the proportion of the public self-isolating, those who are still able to work, where we can improve the information and support we’re giving you.

‘It will provide us with an essential source of information very quickly and we would really encourage you as this will really help support the [medical] team and all the services that are trying to assist the community as we deal with this ongoing situation.’

In addition, Deputy St Pier added that islanders could send through questions from themselves to be answered at the next briefing.

• To take part in the community monitoring tool, go to www.gov.gg/covid19community.

• To ask a question that could be answered at the next media briefing, the States have asked islanders to send them to covid19enquiries@gov.gg, with the title ‘my coronavirus question’ in the subject line.