CCA worked together for islanders’ benefit
ON 30 December you published a letter from Rod Hamon, in which he said that Gavin St Pier had merely ‘sat giving advice that was only a repeat of what Dr Brink had already said’. I would like to point out to Mr Hamon that, on the contrary, Deputy St Pier had carried on his shoulders the political responsibility of balancing the medical requirements against the huge financial and social problems being caused by the very damaging lockdown in the spring. Personally, I would credit Gavin St Pier with strength and political courage in overseeing the release of this very damaging lockdown far more quickly than many of us at the time believed was going to be possible. As we all know, the release of the local lockdown was achieved – and achieved extremely successfully – by continuing with our border controls.
With the benefit of hindsight it may seem obvious now that this was the way to go, but at the time there were many, myself included, who questioned whether continuing with border controls would prove to be a sufficient release of the lockdown.
It was, and is, pretty clear that this strategy was dependent on the early achievement of an effective vaccine, since border controls could not, and cannot, be continued indefinitely.
Only a few short weeks ago, the possibility of achieving an effective vaccine still seemed uncertain, as evidenced by the huge euphoria and relief when Pfizer announced the interim results of their trial, followed by successful results from the Oxford and Moderna vaccine trials.
But now we owe a huge debt of thanks to the previous CCA for the strategy which has kept us largely free of the virus since last summer, and has now brought us to the verge of success. To Dr Nicola Brink, of course, for introducing the highly successful trace-and-test system and fine tuning the border controls, self-isolation and social distancing requirements, but also to the CCA as a whole, and especially Gavin St Pier, Heidi Soulsby and Paul Whitfield, who all played a part in starting us on this road towards success.
Another huge debt is due to all our health professionals, ancillary workers, and members of other caring professions, many of whom have worked, and are still working, hard and long to ensure the success of the strategy.
Some have said that we have all contributed something by acting responsibly, and this is most probably true.
But many suffered socially and/or financially from the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic, and many are still suffering because of the continuing border controls. Our economy has also taken a big hit, though much less than it might have been, because of the speed with which the local lockdown came off.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about these vaccines, but we do know enough to have a reasonable expectation that, when a sufficient level of vaccine roll out has been achieved here and elsewhere, the virus should start to be beaten back. At which point we should be able to start releasing our border controls.
I’m also looking forward to the day when Gavin St Pier moves back into a more leading role in the States. With the way some deputies are already threatening to spend our hard-earned taxes, we need as many deputies in positions of power as we can get, who have a sense of
the need for restraint in States spending.
BOB PERKINS,
Les Corneilles,
Rue de la Ronde Cheminee,
Castel,
GY5 7GD