Clarity will be needed on rule changes
HOLDING together a complex set of rules and regulations is difficult. It is even harder when they change from one week to another.
Everyone has their own experience and frustrations with lockdown.
The vulnerable who have not crossed their doorstep in weeks, the sports star trying to stay fit, the key worker bussing into work each day, the business owner who was this week told they can resume deliveries, provided they obey the rules on social distancing and their courier follows strict hygiene guidelines.
In the coming weeks and months those rules are going to be flexed and remodelled according to the advice of Public Health.
Keeping up with every detail and hidden consequence is going to be challenging for those setting the rules, let alone those following them.
The president of Health & Social Care reacted quickly and honestly at Wednesday’s press conference to an offbeat question about ormering. Why not? It’s outdoors, it’s healthy. Just remember to keep your social distance.
Within 24 hours the position was clarified. Ormering ‘may be a dangerous activity’. Novices should give this ‘risky exercise’ a miss.
It was a nuanced shift in position and not one everyone will keep up with.
It is also not the most important health guideline around at the moment.
But if lockdown is going to adjust and alter over time the States communications team is going to have to work harder to give all islanders a shot at keeping up.
People want to follow health instructions but need to be reminded what the current position is.
That cannot be achieved with the occasional leaflet, nor are social media and websites the universal answer. Not everyone, especially those most at risk from the coronavirus, follows Twitter, Facebook and gov.gg.
Communication for the web literate is one thing. But before the States congratulates itself too much on its Facebook livestream audiences and website stats it should consider those who are not online.
To both reinforce the basics about hand hygiene and social distancing at the same time as informing the whole island population about a shifting and complex set of instructions requires the States to utilise every avenue at its disposal – and at every given opportunity.