Wrong way to make decision

Clearly, the economic and social implications of this cautious approach are huge, though they are not identified or quantified. Here, I wish not to comment on whether the committee have reached the right answer, but to question whether their process is adequate.

First, it must be noted that Jersey plans a more rapid return to the new normal. We should be discouraged that our most similar counterpart has reached a very different conclusion. This lack of consensus suggests the two plans are the views of only a few.

It is telling that all the metrics that dictate progression throughout the phases of lockdown are related to Covid-19.

The authors have assumed that we value eliminating the risk of any further deaths from the virus above all else.

Perhaps we do – but poverty harms too. And families trying to survive on 80% of minimum wage (£6.80/hour) will be experiencing poverty.

Furthermore, Deputy St Pier feared on 28 March that the first Covid-19-related death would come ‘from someone taking their own life’ as a result of lockdown.

Schools are absent from the plan, yet they are society’s best tool to address social inequality and offer a safe haven for some children.

When increasing activity in any one area threatens to increase virus spread, we must consider what we value most and restore that first. Yet this plan does not discuss the other impacts of lockdown, nor seek to balance the competing risks of continued closure with that of further virus spread.

Lord Sumption wrote that ‘ending the lockdown is a political decision, not a scientific one’.

Our politicians must consider more than the public health impacts of Covid-19 when deciding how to end a lockdown that risks so much more – and we must question whether we have the appropriate body to make these decisions.

I do not fear that we have reached the wrong answer; I fear we have reached an answer by the wrong means, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD.