Rules tightened due to threat of virus variant
A NEW mutant strain of the virus that causes Covid-19 has sparked fresh measures to protect the community.
With dozens of countries closing their borders to the UK following news of the variant of the coronavirus, the Civil Contingencies Authority has announced that any travellers returning from a Category 4 region or country, which includes all of England, will have to have a mandatory test on day 13 of their self-isolation.
Those who refuse to have the day 13 test will have to self-isolate for a further week until they have been in quarantine for 21 days in total.
Anyone self-isolating with a traveller will also have to have an ‘exit test’ on day 13 or will have to be in isolation for 21 days, regardless of whether they have travelled themselves, CCA chairman Peter Ferbrache told yesterday lunchtime’s briefing.
‘There are some people who are coming up to their 13th day of self-isolation soon, so in the next couple of days officers will attend and make arrangements for those to ensure the regulations are enforced.’
He recognised that these were severe regulations and said anyone found to be breaching them could be fined up to £10,000.
Children under 12 who travel from a category 4 country or region will also have to be tested on day 13 if they intend to return to a school, pre-school, childcare or nursery setting.
‘We know how quickly things can change and we know that we must continue to have the right measures,’ Deputy Ferbrache said.
‘We’ve done so over the last 10 months and I’m sure we will continue to do so over the months that still have to elapse before we can put this virus behind us – we are not there yet.’
He asked islanders to remain vigilant: ‘We cannot drop our guard, it’s too important.’
States CEO Paul Whitfield reminded islanders that self-isolation means self-isolation and there is no room for bending the rules.
‘Please do not look for individual home workarounds that then put people at risk,’ he said.
‘That gamble you might make to say “Well, I’ll let them sit on the other side of the room with the window open” is too great for our community.’
Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink then gave an update on the four active cases, one of whom is being treated in hospital, and said the island was in an extremely favourable position to roll out the vaccine programme with no community seeding.
‘We have had an extremely successful first roll-out with 968 of the 975 first doses of the vaccine delivered,’ she said.
The vaccine comes in vials, each with five doses inside. It is provided with an assumed 20% wastage for every 975 doses, but the Guernsey programme had only seven unused doses, which is 0.7% wastage.
Who received the 968 doses?
. 350 care home staff
. 50 Medical Specialist Group frontline staff
. 30 Primary Care doctors and nurses
. 25 Dentists and hygienists
. 25 paramedics, ambulance technicians and first responders
. 30 Alderney and Sark health workers
. 328 Acute staff/mental health ward staff/and allied health professionals
. 130 Social care staff, including district nurses, domiciliary care staff and private carers
