Three in hospital as covid cases pass 600

Tuesday 06 July 2021

There are now 632 recorded cases of covid in Jersey, and three people are in hospital.

456 people are showing symptoms and 176 are not.

25 of the cases identified in the past 24 hours were seeking healthcare, 20 were contact traced, 13 were inbound travellers, three were identified during workforce screening, two via cohort screening and one via admissions screening.

4,847 have been deemed direct contacts - as of Sunday, they are now allowed to avoid quarantine, so long as they agree to be tested and do not return a positive result.

The number of active cases in the Island is 632.
456 cases are symptomatic and 176 cases are asymptomatic.

Total Tests
493,878 negative tests (+3,094)
3,948 confirmed positive (+64)
3,256 confirmed recovered (+4)
170 pending

— Government of Jersey (@GovJersey) July 6, 2021

Despite glitches with the testing results delivery system over the weekend, the average turnaround time is 7.9 hours. This is a slight increase on yesterday, when it was 7.7 hours.

Senator Sam Mézec raised concerns about the rising covid numbers following the direct contact policy change on Twitter.

"64 new cases today, another person in hospital and a further 428 direct contacts who don't have to isolate now, even though many of them may well have Covid which they go on to spread to others," he wrote. "This is all officially government policy to accept now."

64 new cases today, another person in hospital and a further 428 direct contacts who don't have to isolate now, even though many of them may well have Covid which they go on to spread to others.

This is all officially government policy to accept now.

— Senator Sam Mézec (@SamMezecJsy) July 6, 2021

The Chief Minister said the reason direct contact rules had been changed was as a result of the analysis of the "balance of harms", taking into account the fact that younger people were less likely to suffer severe covid.

Some islanders have since voiced concerns that the change will unfairly impact islanders who had not yet had the opportunity to get both doses of the covid vaccine. 

This included the National Education Union's Jersey branch, which shared fears from younger teachers and staff about being exposed to children that may have covid, as well as the possibility that they might also spread covid to the children. They said they felt they were being treated by Government as "collateral damage."

Rob Ward this afternoon highlighted the advice of England's Chief Medical Officer that he expected the numbers of younger individuals with Long Covid to go up.

"Fundamentally the two ways to prevent long Covid in my view are to keep Covid rates right down and make sure everyone is vaccinated so they get very mild disease and I think we really just need to push hell for leather for those two.

— Deputy Rob Ward (Reform Jersey) (@deputyrobward) July 6, 2021

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