Transparent decisions pay dividends

While happy to lay out the five principles that would guide the process, the stand-in prime minister was not to be drawn on which groups might emerge first.

Would it be by age group? Or by type of employment? Would schools go first? Would low-risk 20-somethings get the chance to go to the pubs and clubs to mingle?

It is one of the key areas where the UK approach has differed from the Bailiwick’s.

Here, Deputy Gavin St Pier and the Public Health team have been more open, talking candidly this week about outdoor workers and those who can employ social distancing being uppermost in their thoughts for first release.

Asked on Wednesday about easing restrictions, the island leadership team were clear that they went into lockdown with plans for how they would come out of it.

Today, we should hear more about how those ideas have progressed.

A lack of openness and transparency has undermined much of the good work done in the UK.

First, the number of tests were shown to have fallen far short of the government’s 10,000 target, despite a claim that they had reached it.

Then repeated assurances by ministers about the amount of personal protective equipment available to nurses and doctors were contradicted by those on the frontline.

And damaging headlines came out when the public realised Covid-19 fatalities in care homes were not being included in the UK death toll.

The Bailiwick took a different approach, for all the right reasons.

From the outset, all Covid-19-related deaths were included, including care homes. And now the island includes fatalities of those who were not tested but are suspected of being infected.

It is not a strategy without risk. Many still mistakenly try to compare UK and island totals.

But in the long-term, trust is undermined if people feel they are not being given the whole picture. Islanders want to be treated as adults, not fed bits of reassuring information.

Then when the decision is made to relax lockdown people can be assured they know how and why.