WATCH: “It isn’t a lockdown”

Wednesday 23 December 2020

The island is not in lockdown, the Chief Minister has assured islanders, despite all hospitality and fitness venues being closed, along with non-essential shops, until at least 11 January, most islanders working from home and gatherings limited to just 10 people indoors and outdoors.

Senator John Le Fondré described the current situation as “a circuit break”, arguing that islanders are not restricted in the amount of time they can spend out of their homes.

In a press conference this morning, he discussed a series of further restrictions announced yesterday to help curb the rise in covid-19 cases in the island. 

Video: The Chief Minister, Health Minister and Deputy Medical Officer for Health took part in a press conference this morning.

The new measures – which includes closing all non-essential shops from 18:00 tomorrow – come 19 days after all hospitality and fitness venues were told to shut down.

All will remain closed until at least 11 January, a week later than had previously been announced for the hospitality sector.

Senator Le Fondré however moved to reassure islanders the island wouldn’t be locking down like they did in March, repeating his reassurances when questioned by Express about the current situation.

“It isn’t a lockdown, in fact if you go to the principle of a lockdown and even what we did in March was easier than a whole range of jurisdictions, we’re not restricting people to stay in their homes and only out for two hours a day and those type of measures,” he said. “It is not a lockdown, it is a circuit break, there is a subtlety. We are not putting restriction on how long you can go outside for.” 

Pictured: Dr Ivan Muscat, the Deputy Medical Officer for Health.

During the conference, Dr Ivan Muscat, the Deputy Medical Officer for Health, revealed the current 14-day average of cases has risen to 933 per 100,000 population. 

“Over the last couple of days there may have been a slowing day of the number of new cases reported but we do know there is significant day to day variation in the number of active cases we pick up, so we should not read too much into this at the moment,” he added.

The Chief Minister repeated that the numbers are increasing due to “the vast amount of testing” being done in the island, noting 12,000 swabs were performed last week.  

Pictured: The Chief Minister says more cases are identified as a result of the vast amount of testing being done locally.

“That is significantly more than any jurisdiction around us, certainly on European level and pretty well high on the global level,” he said. “That is giving us a lot greater intelligence and a lot more forward looking if you like, because it’s identifying a lot more out there than there were previously.” 

Senator Le Fondré assured that more cases are being identified through regular tests that give rise to contract tracing, rather than the other way around.

“We are testing more people, that identifies more cases and then that gives rise to more contact tracing, what a whole range of jurisdictions are not doing. We’re doing a significant amount of workforce tracing too, us actually going out and tracking down where that virus might be and identifying it a lot earlier than everyone else.”