Reopening borders 'will cause even more economic damage’
GUERNSEY’S authorities have been urged to resist calls to reopen the borders too quickly, because the risks of a second outbreak could cause more economic damage and unemployment than the first.
Local venture capitalist Jon Moulton said the idea of gambling away everything that the island had achieved was ‘very foolish’.
His comments come as a legal action is lodged by another local businessman, to challenge the accountability and proportionality of the Civil Contingencies Authority and their ongoing imposition of stringent border restrictions.
However, Mr Moulton said that the stakes were very high, and rushing to open the borders could jeopardise the quality of life currently enjoyed by islanders, give a serious beating to the economy, and destroy confidence. With the recent spike in cases in the UK, he does not want the CCA to budge from its cautious approach to easing off restrictions.
‘A second outbreak could really hurt because it would be attacking a weakened animal with substantially less cash reserves, and we’ve done really well compared to compared to other jurisdictions. We’ve probably lost 5 to 6% of GDP this year, but other places are talking about losing 20%, so it’s bad but it could have been much worse. We’re very lucky because our economy is heavily dependent on financial services and those businesses are largely unaffected because people have been able to work remotely. It’s very favourable that we’re seen as a virus-free island, it’s done us a lot of good, I’ve heard lots of friendly words from people elsewhere, the fact that the internal economy is operating as normal is really good, that businesses don’t have to worry about whether they can stay open or be interrupted, we can run things here that can’t happen in London and Paris.’
Looking to the future, Mr Moulton said there would be questions ahead about the amount of spare retail space and office space, and whether it could be converted to residential. The pandemic has hit the high street hard, and early indications are that consumers have maintained new online shopping habits.
A drive around the Salerie car park suggests that even four months after most of the lifting of most lockdown measures, including social distancing, many office workers are still operating from home.
Another long-term change is business travel, because those passengers have grown accustomed to holding online meetings on platforms such as Zoom.
Mr Moulton predicts that the numbers of business travellers will be reduced permanently, and it will mean fewer air links out of Guernsey, and possibly a bigger States subsidy for Aurigny.
The vaccine trial by Imperial College London is partly funded by Mr Moulton, and he said that the early results were very good and there was optimism that it could be ready for mass immunisation programmes by the end of this year.
