Guernsey Press

Plans to copy New Zealand social distancing measures

IN THE 1 metre versus 2 metre debate on coronavirus social distancing, Guernsey looks set to adopt both.

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Pete Le Lacheur kindly sent us his daughter Jenet’s updated version of the Occupation image to celebrate Guernsey having no known cases of Covid-19.

There are plans for the Bailiwick to copy the example set by New Zealand, which uses physical distancing of two metres or one metre, depending on the circumstance.

Controlled environments in New Zealand such as school classrooms and workplaces use a one metre guideline, and other spaces such as on public transport use two metres.

The Director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink, explained the rationale.

‘Controlled circumstance is, for example, when you’re in a restaurant or a classroom and you know who everyone is in the classroom or restaurant and you can get contact details, so that if someone became ill we could contact trace very quickly, and for those circumstances we are recommending one metre. However, in more uncontrolled environments we are looking at two metres, for example that’s walking around a supermarket, where you could pass someone you don’t know and there’s not the same level of detail.

‘So Public Health is recommending one metre when we are able to contract trace a group of individuals, and that will have a profound impact on people who want to deliver a class, because a class can be quite easily socially distanced by one metre, but not so easily with two metres.’

The World Health Organisation recommended one metre social distancing, but Britain was one of the few countries that became outliers and adopted two metres.

With the island making big changes from this Saturday by moving into phase 4 of the exit strategy, reducing the two-metre rule in some situations should allow more businesses to get back to a relative normal.

It is widely accepted that transmission of the virus outdoors is much less significant than indoors, and this science has helped to inform the Guernsey picture.

The virus does not respect international boundaries so Dr Brink is confident that Guernsey can follow the approach successfully adopted in New Zealand.

She said the public would be able to understand the nuances of the changes and she trusted them to be responsible.

‘My information that I’ve got from New Zealand is that people have managed it pretty well, and if you’re in a class and it’s controlled and you can give your name and telephone details and so on, it’s easy to say that’s a controlled situation. I think people understand these things as long as we explain it clearly.’

Further information about social distancing will be given at the press conference on Friday.