No new cases yesterday, but 11th death

Just nine have been confirmed in the last week.

There have been 245, with 155 of those people having recovered.

Unfortunately, there has been another fatality – a person over 80 from a care home – bringing the total to 11 confirmed deaths and four presumed to be caused by Covid-19.

Medical director Dr Peter Rabey said that some elderly Covid-19 patients had not been taken to hospital, as it was not in their interests.

‘We’ve been doing everything we can to support people in that position have a dignified and compassionate death, in the place they are familiar with,’ he said.

There are currently four people in the hospital’s Covid-19 ward and plans are under way for doctors to see more outpatients in person.

While lockdown is easing today, the main message is still to stay at home. Exact details of the phased release from lockdown are set to be released soon.

Health & Social Care president Heidi Soulsby said countries across the world had different plans, so it was hard to know how it would work out here.

Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink said community seeding was one of her main indicators as to where things were.

‘We had one case of community seeding, which we diagnosed a day ago or so,’ she said.

‘So there are still the odd cases popping up, which we need to test, contact trace and quarantine very, very promptly.’

But she said there was no evidence there was a large amount of community seeding.

‘When we are confident we are on top of each stage, then we will move to the next.

‘What I don’t want to do is define it and raise expectations.’

She confirmed the current plan was still to reopen schools after half-term, but if things went really well, they might reopen earlier.

She warned that a vaccine was unlikely before next year, so some measures were likely to be in place for a prolonged period.‘Our aim is to get the Bailiwick moving as fast as we can,’ she said.