The government have confirmed that the minimum ten-day isolation period for all arrivals will remain in force for students hoping to return home for the upcoming break. At Christmas, boarding-school students returning to the Island were tested on arrival and treated as if they were coming from a ‘green’ jurisdiction.
Known active cases of Covid-19 peaked at more than 1,000 in December, but have since fallen. And case numbers in the UK have dropped dramatically over the past week as well.
Deputy medical officer of health Dr Ivan Muscat said: ‘Our border controls remain one of our highest risks for new cases of the virus to enter and spread in Jersey. Due to the high Covid activity in the UK, it remains sensible to maintain our restrictions for all passengers.’
Boarding-school students were given exemptions last year due to being somewhat isolated from their surrounding communities, where Covid cases were more prevalent. However, they will not receive the same exemptions for the upcoming holidays.
One mother, who asked not to be named, with two children at boarding school said that not enough consideration had been given to children studying outside of Jersey and who had already been deprived of an education through school closures in the UK.
She added: ‘The schools themselves have massive systems in place to make sure the kids are not exposing themselves to Covid.’
She explained that a more sensible approach would be to force returning students to isolate until they received the results from their day-five test. Currently, all passengers must take a Covid test on arrival, on day five and day ten and are only allowed out of isolation once they have received negative results from all three.
Health Minister Richard Renouf said: ‘The health of Islanders remains our priority. Our Covid-19 vaccination programme will soon open to all Islanders over 50 years old, which marks a significant amount of work achieved by the vaccination team. While vulnerable Islanders continue to be protected, we must be very cautious about the mix of restrictions we gradually ease and think about how they work together holistically. No one measure operates in isolation; we must always consider the potential impact across services and the Island.’
Further updates to travel requirements ahead of the summer holidays can be expected in the coming months, the government have said.
Meanwhile, the Island’s leaders were urged to maintain ‘robust’ border controls and testing to keep out new Covid variants during yesterday’s States sitting.
Deputy Inna Gardiner asked Deputy Renouf ‘what new measures were being taken to protect the Island from the new variants of Covid?’.
She cited concerns about the Brazilian and South African strains of the virus. Deputy Renouf said Jersey relied ‘to a significant extent on the measures in the UK’. Anyone travelling from South America or South Africa would not arrive in Jersey directly, he said, but would be far more likely to come through the UK.
Deputy Renouf also said the Island had been in touch with the UK’s health authorities and were ‘very much aware of the restrictions there’. If anyone travelled on to Jersey having had their quarantine period in the UK, they would also to undertake a further period of quarantine and be tested three times when arriving in Jersey, he said.
Also during the sitting the Health Minister said that children under the age of five would be exempt from gathering restrictions. Current guidelines state that no more than ten people should gather in groups indoors or outdoors. However, the minister said that under-fives would soon be exempt, allowing playgroups and toddler groups to restart.
There have been wide-ranging calls for ministers to produce a ‘roadmap’ for the easing of restrictions. It is understood that the Competent Authorities Ministers – which comprises the Chief, External Relations, Economic Development, Infrastructure, Home Affairs and Health Ministers – met last week to begin discussing the timeline for lifting restrictions and it is believed that an announcement could be made later this week.
Meanwhile, the Isle of Man yesterday entered a ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown following a spike in cases.
