Will economy gain by bursting border bubble?
AS THE weeks go by and local lockdown fades to a memory the voices demanding that the Bailiwick burst its border bubble grow ever louder.
At its heart are three assumptions.
One is that the island can manage infections imported through open borders with track and trace and keep a strong second wave from forcing a disastrous second shutdown.
Secondly, if the disease did re-establish itself, doctors and nurses could cope. Treatments are better understood now and care homes and the hospital are better prepared in terms of ventilators and protective clothing.
The third assumption is that the economy would benefit hugely. Hotels, airlines, travel agents and tourist attractions would be busy and the finance industry and others would profit from people coming and going for those all-important face-to-face meetings.
Health & Social Care and the Civil Contingencies Authority have to test each of those assumptions to destruction before moving to Phase 6. If the first two are wrong the consequences would be deadly. If the last is wrong the risk is not worth it.
Critical to that final judgement call is information which is not yet in the public domain.
How much damage, for example, is keeping the borders closed doing to the economy? And how much of the GDP drop is due not to Guernsey’s closed borders but to the world market?
Manufacturers around the world are struggling to catch up after the shutdown. Island businesses ranging from cycle shops to car sales rooms report that they have plenty of customers but are short of stock to sell.
In the 20 days since lockdown ended, the island economy has regained some ground. Much of that is due to the confidence of islanders that they are safe within the Bailiwick.
How much would it cost the economy to see people retreat to their homes and stop spending?
Those who would burst the Bailiwick bubble paint it as a stark choice: open the borders now or the economy suffers.
Yet while the danger of Covid-19 remains high it is more complicated than that. Sweden, the poster boy for open borders and no lockdown, has lost far more lives per capita than its near neighbours to Covid-19, while its economy has suffered just as badly.