Guernsey Press

Relax too much and we invite trouble

IN SOME ways this is the trickiest part of the fight against Covid-19.

Published

The number of cases is dropping, the curve is not only flattened but turning in the right direction.

Our hospital is quiet with no threat that the intensive care unit will be overwhelmed.

Deaths, while tragic, are confined to care homes rather than spreading unchecked.

And the pictures from hospitals in Italy, London and New York on the nightly news are no longer of body bags but health services regaining control.

The island press briefings have gone from deadly serious to injecting a bit of humour mixed with a positive message about how well we have done.

And this week the lockdown has been further eased with small builders, gardeners and estate agents allowed back to work.

All the signs are good.

Yet the danger has not passed. And the fear must be that islanders look at all the good news and let their collective guard down.

Without the fear that has driven much of the extraordinary effort to control the coronavirus people will naturally start to take risks.

Wash their hands less often, start meeting friends and family, mix age groups, perhaps even push the boundaries of social distancing.

It is a natural response. A month ago this was all new. Our screens were filled with the terrifying threat of Covid-19.

Four weeks on, that raw sense of danger has passed for many people. They can see the end of the tunnel and the news focus has switched away from the threat to life on to the financial and mental damage wrought by the lockdown.

There is an impatience for this all to be over – and quickly.

But it would be a mistake to relax in the belief that we have woken from this nightmare.

For there is still no vaccine, and might not be this year. There is no agreed treatment for those in hospital nor a reliable antigen test to show who has some immunity.

If the core messages that have got us so far are forgotten in the rush to believe the worst is over we risk a second wave of infections leading to a more serious contagion.