UKH

So, having eliminated Covid wave 1 back in early summer and snuffed out a small outbreak out in the autumn we're back in lockdown here (Guernsey), having been completely unrestricted on-island since May.  4 new cases were detected yesterday afternoon around 4:30pm, each of which apparently unrelated to the others and with no obvious source of infection (e.g. contact with a traveller). At 8:30 this morning Government told everyone to social distance (including businesses) and banned gatherings. At noon they gave a video briefing and locked us down - 19.5 hours after the cases were detected.

Everyone stays at home unless shopping for essential food/supplies, seeking healthcare, or 2 hours of exercise on their own or with members of their household.  Essential workers can go to work if necessary, but there are very few of those compared to UK essential worker status. All restaurants and takeouts are shut, pubs and clubs are shut, tradesmen can't work, beauty providers can't work. I suspect the only shops open will be ones selling food, fuel, or pharmacies. Shops were busy this morning but operating socially-distanced. Schools are shut to all but vulnerable kids and those of essential workers.  Took the kids out for an hour's walk this afty and saw one car and one couple walking - people really have stayed at home.  I suspect we'll get more guidance and possible changes to rules tomorrow or monday once they have an idea of the scale of the problem. They were contact tracing until 1am this morning.

With any luck this will snuff this outbreak out quickly.  They've asked everyone who went to a pub and adjacent restaurant between Monday and Thursday to go for a test - I'm guessing a staff member may have tested positive.  Will be interesting to see how bad it is given the completely unrestricted society.

In reply to Toerag:

Well done to the Guernsey authorities.

I'm sure the source will be traced to external travel; possibly an asymptomatic traveller.

In reply to Toerag:

Fingers cross for wrapping it up fast.  Good work on the lockdown in under 24 hours.

Is there sequencing capability on the island?

In reply to captain paranoia:

I was thinking along the lines of the "Isle of Man's Jet-ski Romeo"

Hopefully the prompt action will work.

In reply to wintertree:

No, we have to send samples away for that. We can test on island, over 1,000 a day without batch testing.  IoM had a similar lockdown on the 7th and they seem to have nailed it already.

In reply to RobAJones:

I was thinking of all those business travellers discussed in the 'who are these people' thread...

In reply to captain paranoia:

That's most likely. We have test on arrival and on day 13 to exit self-isolation on day 14, or 21 day SI if you're one of those idiots that doesn't want a test.

In reply to Toerag:

Unrelated specifically to the op but coincidentally my wife and I were just speaking about Jersey/Guernsey and the fact we have never visited yet really want to when we can holiday again, especially as we have no desire to fly for a time.

For a relaxing break with decent food etc, is it a good location? What's there to do and would you camp or hire a cottage etc.

In reply to Toerag:

Is inbound travel still allowed via quarantine?  

In reply to Toerag:

The Isle of Man seems to have got on top of a similar problem (failed quarantine then untraceable community transmission) with a similar approach and speed. It's still taking weeks though to mop up then to be sure.

Jk

In reply to wintertree:

Yes, but only 'essential travel' - no-one is coming on holiday. I think anything more restrictive would be deemed to be 'against human rights', so they allow people in but make it so most people don't want to travel in the first place. Critical workers are allowed in without quarantine, but they have to SI in their accommodation, travel direct to their workplace, be tested regularly, have their own facilities and not mingle with local workers. It's quite a strict setup and has to be agreed with government in advance.

7 new cases (1 community seeded) found in the evening test run yesterday, then another 20 (1 CS) in the overnight one. I think another 18 or so found today and 7 schools implicated. Facebook is full of 'Karens' wanting to know which schools, even though there's nothing they can do about it.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Food is generally good due to competition, we're well stocked with restaurants. Nothing Michelin starred at present, but there's not the interest from the industry.  We have less to do than Jersey does, but that's only a problem if you can't entertain yourselves. If you like history it's excellent - lots of dolmens, castles and ww2 bunkers to poke around. Some good museums on the occupation.  15 miles of good cliff path walking with a smattering of 'smugglers coves' along the way.  3 campsites, all with permanent tents or log cabins if you don't want to bring your own. Numerous self-catering places, and of course hotels. Nothing really bottom end and cheap though, everyone's chased the empty nester market.  Jersey is more touristy, having chased the tourism market for a hundred years or so, but it's also more like the UK, their town especially could be any UK town with UK chains. Guernsey has remained quainter. Have a look at www.visitguernsey.com for more inspiration and feel free to PM me if you want to know more. There's normally direct ferries daily from Poole or Portsmouth on Condor ferries, but passengers are currently banned from the ferries to protect the freight service.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I’ve been to both Jersey and Guernsey on business (a lot) and some holidays.  Both v nice but I’d recommend Guernsey for a holiday, although it is quite small.  Great food, some nice bars, beaches and coastline, some good history, quaint etc.  I really like St. Peter Port in Guernsey whereas, as said above, St Helier on Jersey could be any (albeit fairly nice) British town.  

In reply to Toerag:

Thanks Toerag/Skyfall, 

It would be a chilled holiday of waking late, walking lots and visiting interesting places, then eating - rinse and repeat - preferably away from lots of people. 

Anyway, thanks for letting me hijack.

In reply to Toerag:

Sounds like Guernsey don't know what they're doing.

A more enlightened approach is to keep everything open for as long as possible, let the virus spread uncontrollably throughout the population and wait until healthcare system is at absolute breaking point before taking any action at all. Then you can have a much longer lockdown but make sure you stop short of  the virus actually going away. Then when you open everything up you won't have to wait too long for the cycle to repeat itself.

As long as you don't mind the greatly increased death rate and massive drop in GDP this approach works really well. Of course after a while some people don't like the extended lockdowns and will flout the rules but you can just increase the size of the fines.

In reply to stp:

Maybe the plan is to use fines to replace tax revenue in the new economic model.

In reply to Toerag:

48 new cases in today's stats, no information on community-seeded numbers unfortunately. Contact tracers are going back 2 weeks and my wife had a call from a friend who she met up with the Monday before last to warn her to expect a call from the tracers as her daughter who was present at the meetup has tested positive.

Schools are closed completely today and tomorrow, they were originally supposed to open to vulnerable kids and ones where both parents are critical workers. There's a government briefing tomorrow lunchtime where we'll no doubt get some more excellent information and updated guidance.  Covid deniers and people trying to find ways around lockdown on local social media groups are getting absolutely roasted, people are unhappy they've lost their freedom and are taking it out on them .

In reply to stp:

I get that this is sarcasm and I agree the UK has squandered nearly every opportunity to manage this well but it's worth remembering/considering the pressures on a small island are a bit different, they simply can't afford to make the mistakes we did and just about get away with it. With only one hospital your capacity to treat patients once covid is established collapses very fast, there may for example only be 3 anaesthetists employed total, if one goes off sick you're in big trouble, if two do you no longer really have a hospital. Same goes for several key specialisms.

jk

In reply to jkarran:

Correct. One Hospital with 4 operating theatres whose A&E surge capacity is about 30 beds I think. Doesn't take much to overwhelm it. Alderney has even less and Sark has no hospital.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Sorry - bit of a thread hijack.

Your "anti-mask" thread is now locked.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/anti-mask-729918

The piece that was thrown at you came from the CEBM against whom I have long ranted on UKC.

The CEBM feature prominently on this independent website collecting evidence against bad actors in the Covid misinformation wars.

An indépendant group including a Tory MP have put this website together; it has a whole section devoted to looking at CEBM Covid outputs; you might throw this back if you're still in that argument.  It has another section going through the issue of masks.

http://covidfaq.co

If CurlyStevo happens to be reading this - this is why I pushed back so hard when you referred to CEBM as a "more official" source of statistics. The CEBM are not to be trusted on Covid.