'Travel corridors' being considered as hotels open to 'staycations'

Thursday 18 February 2021

The Chief Minister has raised the prospect of opening Jersey's borders to jurisdictions with covid under "tight control", as he announced hotels will be allowed to open for 'staycations' from Monday.

In an unscheduled statement issued around 18:00 yesterday evening, Senator John Le Fondré said he had met Dr Ivan Muscat and Patrick Armstrong of STAC to discuss the ongoing relaxation of covid restrictions.

While it had already been confirmed that cafés and restaurants could open from Monday 22 February, he said that it had now been decided that hotels can also open “under strict and controlled conditions."

“This will allow more islanders to return to work in controlled settings and marks another point in our reconnection strategy and a return to normality,” he explained.

“However, we will not be relaxing our border restrictions just yet, and hotels that choose to open from next week will only be open to staycations and arriving passengers who are required to isolate. There are already rigorous rules for these premises and further guidance will be published shortly.”

He did, however, hint that Jersey could consider an 'air corridor' system - such as the one adopted last year by Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which have both pursued an elimination strategy - around Easter.

Pictured: The Chief Minister raised the prospect of opening Jersey's borders to arrivals from jurisdictions with low numbers of covid cases.

"We plan to have vaccinated the majority of over 50-year-olds with at least one dose by the end of March, allowing us to lift some further restrictions. In parallel to this, we are developing plans on when, and under what criteria, we can relax our borders to those jurisdictions that have covid under tight control."

Since mid-January, all passengers arriving in Jersey at the Airport or Harbour have been treated as having landed from a 'red zone'.

The restriction, which means all new arrivals face at least 10 days in quarantine and must undergo three covid tests, was introduced in response to more infectious variants of covid being identified around the world. So far, only the Kent variant has been identified in Jersey.

Despite the low number of cases on the island (42 at the time of writing) and covid restrictions now easing, Jersey's top pandemic medic Dr Ivan Muscat MBE last night urged islanders to "keep your guard up".

The number of active cases in the Island is 42.
19 cases are symptomatic and 23 cases are asymptomatic. 0 are in hospital (-).

Total Tests
291,046 negative tests (+1,374)
3,207 confirmed positive (+2)
3,108 confirmed recovered (+1)
96 pending

— Government of Jersey (@GovJersey) February 17, 2021

He reminded islanders that the easing of restrictions is likely to bring an uptick in cases, and warned that household mixing is still a highly risky activity.

"It is sensible to assume we will see some rise in case numbers in the coming week due to the upward pressure of people mixing in hospitality and the resumption of some sports activities. But these are controlled environments and we have robust mitigations to limit spikes as we have done in other controlled environments like schools and non-essential retail.

"Household mixing is not safe at this time because there are no mitigation measures we can put in place in private homes. I would very strongly recommend sticking to meeting friends outdoors and avoid household mixing in private gardens which are usually smaller or can increase the risk of indoor mixing should the weather change."

Last night also saw the Chief Minister address frustrations from local sportspeople that the resumption of adult outdoor sports was "delayed... in favour of hospitality", although under-18s outdoor activities were allowed to resume yesterday.

Pictured: Dr Ivan Muscat warned islanders that household mixing is still "not safe".

"...We are balancing competing priorities, and for Ministers the priority is to allow time after each reconnection to monitor any cases and their adherence to the guidelines to make sure we don’t have any worrying clusters," Senator Le Fondré said.

"We can only achieve this balance if people stick to the guidelines, avoid going into other people's homes, and keep children safe by encouraging them to stay outside with a small group of friends, and not to congregate in large numbers or in each other's homes."

He also pledged to assess whether "medium risk activities" - including singing, indoor sport and other community activities - can resume "in controlled settings" after half-term.

"Once we have done this, we will then look to reintroduce lower risk activities in uncontrolled settings, like meeting people in their gardens. If, and I stress if, cases remain low and our vaccination programme maintains its good progress, we will then consider further activities in uncontrolled settings, like meetings in homes. By then our days will be getting longer, and our warmer weather will help in combatting the virus," he said.

Earlier this week, leading singing teacher Imogen Nicholls MBE expressed frustrations that the Jersey Reds had been given permission to attend fixtures and that sport in groups of up to 35 was scheduled to resume, but that her award-winning choir, the Musical Originals, was not able to meet.

Pictured: Imogen Nicholls said the Musical Originals were able to rehearse safely, with measures in place to avoid transmission of covid.

"In our choir rehearsals, we are socially distanced, wear specially designed singers' masks and abide by all the covid-19 rules and protocols including adequate ventilation, sanitising of hands and surfaces and shorter rehearsal times," Ms Nicholls wrote in a letter to the Education Minister.

The Jersey Music Association added to calls for singing and music-making to return.

"There... remains a good deal of confusion and frustration amongst the Island's musicians about the Government's plans and the relative delay compared to other sectors. Other sectors have already been afforded the opportunity to open up, taking appropriate measures to mitigate risk. Why cannot music be afforded that same trust? The wearing of masks, physical distancing, contract tracing and group sizes are all measures that can be applied equally well to the rehearsal room as to hospitality and sport," Aureole choir's Nicki Kennedy said on the association's behalf.