We have to learn to live with Covid risk
SUGGESTIONS from a senior politician in Jersey that the island could become an early adopter of Covid safety certificates reinforces the different approaches being taken by the islands over the pandemic. Guernsey merely says hang on to the card that you got with the jab in the first place and hope that does the trick.
More fundamentally, vaccine passports raise the whole question of what the new normal post-pandemic will look like.
Even when Guernsey crosses the ‘herd immunity’ threshold which the UK is predicting for itself, that does not guarantee the safety of all its citizens. And as the British Lions fiasco demonstrated, islanders take bio-security very seriously indeed.
Realistically, however, this is less about safety and more about managing risk. The official global death toll reaches three million today, a shocking statistic, but that is just 6% of the loss of life caused by Spanish Flu 100 years ago.
We are now better equipped for pandemics, but without a swift and coordinated global vaccination programme, new and potentially more lethal variants will continue to emerge.
Those inoculating islanders at Beau Sejour will readily confirm that the true new normal – excluding the economic consequences – will not fully emerge until an annual combined flu and Covid variant-specific is developed.
Until then, and even afterwards, communities will have to live with the risk of Covid as borders are reopened and the island tries to rebuild its hospitality sector and encourage the return of business visitors. Further on-island cases of Covid are inevitable.
This is why safety certificates or vaccine passports are so important, irrespective of very real considerations such as limiting individual freedoms or access to socially valuable activities. Jersey’s Economic Development minister recognised this in making his comments and they apply equally to Guernsey.
For economic and social reasons, this island has to reopen its doors as soon as it can, while recognising that it will never do so 100% safely while Covid exists. So nothing that minimises what will remain an ever-present threat can be ruled out.