Eradication is not the goal of endemic exit

With no new cases of Covid-19 in the past 17 days it would be a major surprise if the pencilled-in decision to start phase 3 of the lockdown exit from Monday has not been traced over in ink.

As things stand the island could reach the official standard of ‘total elimination’ – 28 days of no new cases – well before the end of the month.

The return to relative normality after two months of lockdown is a credit to islanders and its leadership considering the explosion of infections from the contagious Kent variety.

Public Health is clear, however, in its Bailiwick Blueprint that total elimination is neither the long-term expectation nor the ambition.

While the low number of cases at present makes the move to phase 3 a more comfortable one it comes with increased risk as border controls are relaxed and non-essential travel starts again.

As seen before and after Christmas, even such a small hole in the Bailiwick bubble bursts any hope that new cases can be kept at bay for long.

Difficult though travel in lockdown UK might be the pent-up demand in Guernsey to see family and friends will inevitably mean the occasional positive.

Again, however, that is not the primary concern. The islands are being asked to accept some travel cases as we move from treating Covid-19 as a pandemic to an endemic virus.

Covid-19 is then expected to be present in some quantity in our community but, with a large proportion of the population vaccinated – in particular the vulnerable – and better treatment methods it should no longer be such a threat.

For islanders, perhaps more than other communities for whom eradication has never been an option, such a shift in thinking will be difficult.

The comfort blanket of knowing that the disease is virtually non-existent in the islands was a source of pride and reassurance in those lonely insular months after Lockdown 1.

To consciously throw it away and accept the consequences will be a challenge.

But as the islands move through the Blueprint timetable towards the ‘new normal’ it is a challenge that must be accepted.