Community seeding ‘is still a matter of concern’

It comes as the number of active Covid-19 cases rose by 36 to 329. Of these, 10 were from unknown community sources.

There are worries about the rising number of older people with the illness – 31 of the cases are people over 70.

Civil Contingencies Authority chairman Peter Ferbrache said the outbreak was still very serious, despite the numbers of new cases levelling out.

‘It’s still a matter of concern,’ he said.

‘We still have community seeding.’

Deputy Ferbrache said he could not confirm if there would be any changes to the lockdown, which started nearly two weeks ago.

Currently, 910 people are in mandatory isolation, and hundreds more have gone into isolation voluntarily, such as those who attended the Dance Festival.

It has still not been confirmed if a more transmissible variant of Covid-19 is in the island, but the press conference panel said it was looking very likely.

Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink said this outbreak was fundamentally different to the first wave, as a significant proportion of new cases were linked with transmission within households.

‘We saw isolated cases of household transmission in the first wave, but in this wave we’ve got whole families that have come up positive,’ she said.

She added that they were also seeing people who had recovered from Covid catching the illness again.

‘People who had Covid quite early on can get it with the waning immunity,’ she said.

While Guernsey has managed to eliminate the virus before, Dr Brink said this was not what they were working for.

‘What we are aiming to do is suppress the virus to a level where it doesn’t impact on the health and wellbeing of the community,’ she said, adding that eliminating active community seeding was the important target and she accepted that cases would occasionally appear, such as the small outbreak in October. The source of the latest outbreak is still unknown, but it has led to increased concerns about inbound travellers.

Travel numbers have plummeted in recent weeks, as all inbound travellers must have a permit to come to the island.

States chief executive Paul Whitfield said there were only 200 travel bookings between now and the end of February.

‘That works out an average about 10 to 20 people per flight and fewer than ten passengers on the ferries,’ he said.

There were 400 calls to the States last week about travel permits. Over 302 permit applications have been made between now and the end of June. So far 185 have been approved and eight rejected. The rest are being discussed.

Mr Whitfield said the system was working effectively.

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