Further lockdowns and border controls would be a disaster

At the 14 May CCA briefing we had an explanation of some of the thinking. It is noteworthy, though, that the emphasis is still on the prevalence of the virus, both here and elsewhere. The CCA have expressed an intention to move to vaccination-based thinking from 1 July. Well, maybe I’m wrong, but the present emphasis on prevalence seems to suggest that thinking needs a significant shift if this is going to be achieved.

The fact that we have had so many apparently virus-free days since the end of last year’s lockdown, while greatly welcome, now seems to have become something of a millstone around our necks, because we have become accustomed to thinking that what matters is whether we are virus-free or not.

In the briefing Deputy Ferbrache made quite a lot of how fortunate we are to have all our present local freedoms. The reality is that we only need to think about restricting any freedoms if we are still thinking in terms of prevalence.

It is at least arguable that we have already done enough vaccinating to start relying now on the protection from infection given by vaccination, the ability of vaccination to inhibit the spread of the virus, and in particular the protection against serious illness and death given by vaccination. Maybe these last two factors are still difficult to quantify, but surely we now have to start relying on them.

We need to keep in mind that the risk of serious illness and death from the virus has always fallen overwhelmingly on the elderly and vulnerable. All members of these groups have now been offered vaccination, and take-up has been very high – far higher than in the UK, for example – and most have now had their second doses.

In January we had the clearest possible demonstration that even the most stringent border controls did not prevent that local outbreak, and we can be pretty sure that, whether we release our border controls or not, the virus will be back some time.

Our January outbreak was also notable in that serious illness and mortality was extremely low, even though we had several hundred infections, and even though we’d rolled out far fewer vaccinations than we have now.

Is there any realistic alternative to just learning to live with variants? Almost certainly not, and we are extremely fortunate that we have a CCA that should be well able to deal with this on our behalf without imposing any further social and economic restrictions, even though this may not be at all easy.

It is quite clear that our most vital objective has now got to be to protect our social structures and our economy, as well as to allow the economy to develop and diversify where possible, and there is no doubt that the CCA are well aware of this. I’d suggest that this almost certainly means relying on vaccination in order to open our borders and avoid any further lockdowns.

The fact is that we can no longer expect to be virus-free, and we have no alternative than to start to rely on a vaccination-based regime, since it is clear that Covid is most likely to be with us for always. To try to counter this with continuing lockdowns and border controls would be a recipe for social and economic disaster.

BOB PERKINS

Les Corneilles,

Rue de la Ronde Cheminee,

Castel, GY5 7GD.