In the coming days all Islanders – regardless of age or health – are going be asked to socially distance themselves from one another to slow the spread of COVID-19. That doesn’t mean ‘lockdown’ but reducing contact by up to 75%.
Currently, travellers are being told to self-isolate for two weeks when returning from any country in Europe or Eurasia and Dr Ivan Muscat, the Island’s deputy medical officer for health, said expanding that advice to include the UK is being considered.
To date six Islanders have tested positive for the disease out of 299 tests. But health experts acknowledge that figure may be distorted because of a lack of testing (full story above) and was likely much higher as, although there was no direct evidence of person-to-person transmission in Jersey it was ‘highly likely’.
Hours after the Chief Minister said he was ‘disturbed’ to hear of Islanders ignoring advice about self-isolation Dr Muscat said it was vital everyone in Jersey worked together to ensure the worst-case scenario did not become a reality.
‘I would like to appeal to the people of Jersey to observe these mitigation factors to ensure when they are asked to self-isolate when returning from a high-risk country that they do so and not flout the guidelines which would be detrimental to their friends, family and population as a whole.
‘If they are asked to self-isolate they should do so.
‘We need the people of Jersey to work with us to achieve a full mitigation in relation to the COVID-19 and we cannot do it without the people of Jersey.’
Latest data from Public Health England estimates that one in two Islanders could contract the disease and feel symptoms and 4% of those could end up in hospital (more than 2,000 people) in a worst-case scenario – if the Island did not introduce any mitigating measures. Under such a scenario, hundreds could end up in intensive care. The majority of those who get COVID-19 will only experience mild symptoms.
There are about 250 beds in the Hospital.
And speaking about the possible death rate, Dr Muscat said: ‘We think that it would be 1% of the 50% who may experience symptoms [who would die].
‘That is what Public Health England are suggesting. It is about 500 people within a reasonable worst-case scenario. The whole point is not to have a worst-case scenario. That is what requires us to introduce appropriate mitigation as soon as possible.’
Asked why there had been such a jump from the reasonable worst-case scenario which had been leaked to the media two weeks ago, Dr Muscat said new data was now available which showed Jersey had to ‘run faster and harder’ to tackle the problem. The information, leaked from a tweet sent by Assistant Health Minster Jeremy Maçon, showed between 12 and 50 deaths and up to 250 hospital admissions – 65 of which would require intensive care.
Dr Muscat said: ‘Two weeks ago the modelling was based on pandemic flu and that came from Public Health England and that was all that was available at the time. This model is entirely derived on COVID-19 experience. It is therefore more relevant and it does mean we have to run faster and harder to deal with this.’
Work is being done to establish extra hospital space at Overdale as well as ‘other health facilities’ and even nursing homes.
There is also a ‘robust escalation plan’ to increase the number of ventilators – machines that help people to breathe. There are currently 29 in Jersey.
Dr Muscat said Islanders in hospital for other conditions would remain if they were ‘acutely unwell’ in the midst of the outbreak.
Those who were getting better but still require hospital treatment, could, he said be ‘looked after outside the acute setting but still be in the umbrella of health’.
Jersey is said to be three or four weeks behind the UK in terms of the virus’s spread but Dr Muscat said the Island is ‘on the cusp of the epidemic curve’.
