Monday 20 July 2020
Daily statistics are provided by Public Health Services which give islanders data on the number of samples tested, along with a summary of case groupings for the positive cases that have been identified.
More data has been released today on the results of the recently conducted pilot programme.
Those who took part in this scheme, and who received a negative test after a swab was taken on day 7 of self-isolation, have been able to go about their business on the Island (with some mandatory restrictions) whilst under passive follow-up for another 7 days.
The table shows the preliminary data on the number of passengers swabbed after travel on the dates shown. For a traveller arriving on the 5th July, their day 7 swab would have been taken on 11th July. All swabs taken have shown a negative result:
Date
| Cumulative passenger arrivals | Cumulative Negative | Cumulative Positive |
5th July | 68 | 0 | 0 |
6th July | 221 | 0 | 0 |
7th July | 275 | 0 | 0 |
8th July | 422 | 0 | 0 |
9th July | 492 | 0 | 0 |
10th July | 615 | 0 | 0 |
11th July |
| 3 | 0 |
12th July | N/A | 70 | 0 |
13th July | N/A | 242 | 0 |
14th July | N/A | 273 | 0 |
15th July | N/A | 409 | 0 |
16th July | N/A | 480 | 0 |
17th July | N/A | 583 | 0 |
18th July | N/A | 615 | 0 |
Dr Nicola Brink, Director of Public Health Services said:
'I have always been open and transparent with the community as we have worked through the COVID-19 pandemic. This data belongs to the community and it is right that this is shared at the earliest opportunity. We have now had a chance to collate the data from the 7 day trial which shows that we have not picked up any new positive cases being imported into the Bailiwick from the results received to date. The team will now be assessing this data as testing on day 7 of self-isolation is a possible alternative to introducing unrestricted travel if the circumstances in the UK do not make this a viable, safe option.'
Deputy Gavin St Pier, Chair of the Civil Contingencies Authority said:
'I am aware that some members of the community are disappointed that the 7 day pilot has not continued into August. Our hope is that soon, but not before the beginning of September, we will be able to reintroduce travel to the UK, and bring back the 'A and B' country approach that was in place before we locked down possibly with post arrival testing and/or shorter periods of isolation. This is reliant on a number of things that are not themselves certain such as the prevalence of the COVID-19 continuing to fall in the UK. We also want to look at the results of our pilot for testing on day 7 and compare them against the data that comes from the UK's Office of National Statistics to be confident in the reliability of the ONS data for our purposes. And importantly we will need to further increase our on-island testing capability to cope with the much larger numbers of arrivals we would expect, as unrestricted travel will still involve mitigations such as one, possibly two tests, for arrivals as part of the 'test and trace' which has been a major success in our response so far.'
