Chief Minister John Le Fondré said during a press conference yesterday that so far, no one under the age of 60 had lost their lives to the virus.
He added that he had begun discussing an economic recovery plan with his officers and fellow ministers and that details of how the lockdown will be eased would be released later this week.
Despite refusing to give any detail on what measures could be relaxed, he added that social-distancing was likely to be in place for ‘quite some time’ and was likely to be the last safeguard to be lifted.
‘I rather would not comment now on the basis that some of that detail will be released on Friday. It will be a framework around what individual measures may look like, relative to where we are [on the curve] and what the next steps will be,’ he said.
‘It is not rocket science to work out it will be a phased approach because that is what most jurisdictions – if not every jurisdiction – seem to be following.’
During the press conference, Senator Le Fondré announced that of the 19 Islanders who had as of yesterday died of Covid-19, ten had been confirmed to have the virus through testing and nine were ‘presumptive’ deaths.
He added that nine had died in the General Hospital, two in St Saviour’s Hospital, seven in care homes and one within an individual’s home. Seven of those who died were female and 12 were male.
Meanwhile, 11% of those who died were aged 60 to 69, 37% were aged between 70 and 79, 32% were aged between 80 and 89 and 21% were aged over 90.
With effect from 30 April, additional statistics will be published every Thursday, detailing the percentage of total Covid-19 deaths during the previous week, the previous month and for the year to date, including comparisons with previous years.
The most recent data shows that Jersey remains well short of the level of swab-testing pledged by chief executive Charlie Parker in a press briefing on 15 April.
Mr Parker said there was capacity for 120 on-Island tests daily from that point onwards. However, in the 12-day period since, the total number of tests has risen by just under than 700.
Yesterday, Senator Le Fondré was asked whether antibody tests, claimed to determine whether someone has had the virus and possibly developed an immunity to it, would be made available to people who had not previously tested positive.
In response, he said: ‘I have not actually thought that one through but I suspect, this is very much a personal view and a question that I will be asking when we get the next update – either Tuesday or Wednesday, I suspect the answer must be yes,’ he said.
‘We just suspect that the rule of thumb we operated on previously – for each person who has so far tested positive, there are ten out there who may not have realised they had it, from a logic point of view, it must be that there will be those who have not tested positive who will be checked for antibodies.’
As of yesterday afternoon, 283 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 181 people have recovered, indicating that there were 102 current positive cases.
