Economic with the facts

Wednesday 30 June 2021

Whole families have been forced into self-isolation. Children are losing days at school. Events popular with both visitors and locals have been cancelled, along with other events, mostly at short notice.

No Battle of Flowers, no Gorey Fete, no Queen’s birthday celebrations at Government House. Private outdoor celebrations have been thrown into disarray.

Local caterers have echoed Jersey Kitchen’s Tony Sergeant’s public lament that he is "staring down the financial barrel of a gun.”

Active covid-19 cases in our community have jumped to 196 at time of the writing, increasing by roughly 20% a day over four days. The number of identified direct contacts is 1,892. The UK’s own covid-19 statistic suggest we can expect to see more hospitalisations (albeit fewer than before) within 3 to 6 weeks, with the first one being confirmed this week. 

It’s not just about hospitalisations though. It never was.  

Today's statistics show that one person is currently in hospital. Due to patient confidentiality, we are unable to provide more information.

The number of active cases in the Island is 196.
128 cases are symptomatic and 68 cases are asymptomatic.

— Government of Jersey (@GovJersey) June 29, 2021

New border entry rules have deterred some holiday seekers from vacationing here, to avoid their older children having to self-isolate for 10 days. Losing ‘green status’ in other jurisdictions harms the Island’s attraction for visitors and valued travel connectivity too.  

Malta, a competing holiday jurisdiction with four times our population size, has only 40 covid-19 cases now that 73% of its population is double vaccinated. STAC has been aiming for a similar percentage of Islanders to be double jabbed to ensure optimal treatment of those needing medical attention for covid infection and to limit viral spread. 

The Delta variant spreads at a much faster rate than Islanders can be double-vaccinated. More than 50% of Islanders have yet to be vaccinated twice. Debilitating ‘long covid’ affects some unknown people, even if they do not end up in hospital. With the variant at large, how many Islanders yet to be double jabbed have even chosen to test their personal resilience against it in this way? 

Minutes of government’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Cell (STAC) report how representatives appointed to support Jersey’s economy have fired salvoes into STAC’s pandemic planning on more than one occasion, only to result in own goals. 

Last year, despite accelerating covid-19 spread in the UK, local hospitality and travel businesses were hauling summer visitors into the Island. While Islanders descended upon St. Helier, waving free vouchers to support its businesses, a ‘political decision’ was made to relax travel restrictions against STAC’s advice, despite known incubation periods. 

The States Assembly had been informed government’s economic advisers were not using their own mathematical modelling to navigate the pandemic. Unlike the data being published daily by government health advisers, when the Chief Economic Adviser and the CEO of Jersey Finance advocated a higher level of travel ‘connectivity’ to challenge STAC’s management plan, STAC’s minutes suggest the requested supporting evidence was imprecise and anecdotal.

The much-publicised resultant viral explosion prevented hospitality businesses from trading during their normally busy Christmas season. Many appealed for unprecedented financial support. 

Pictured: Celebrations over the Christmas season - a crucial revenue-generating period for the events sector - had to be cancelled due to the outbreak.

So, what evidence helped drive STAC’s carefully designed pandemic management off track this time?  

When the UK’s press reported the British Lions, partly chose to train in Jersey on safety grounds, Jersey had fewer than 10 identified cases of covid at the time.  Shortly after that, a highly contagious covid-19 variant, already causing chaos in the UK, was found locally. That very same month, the two Ministers tasked with representing our local business community sought to accelerate and change parts of government’s reconnection strategy.  

Contact tracing alone has proved incapable of stopping visitors from accelerating viral spread. Those responsible for our economy should have learnt how inadequate viral containment, resulting in lockdowns, illness and increased contact tracing, impacts on government’s resourcing and Islanders’ productivity. 

STAC minutes report the reason for peeking into Pandora’s Box this time was ‘pressure’ from unnamed representatives of some local firms, who believed the balance of harm was "out of kilter". They pointed at office workers being allowed to mix in the ‘controlled environment’ of restaurants but not in the workplace, describing planned trade-offs as inconsistencies. 

Islanders wait 10 years for government to pursue a painstaking review of its planning policies. Judges in law courts generally give reasoned opinions openly to explain any distinctions made by them when following rules. Any calculations by the Chief Economic Adviser (or anyone else responsible for assessing ‘economic harms’) in response to the stated concern remain unavailable for peer review. 

Pictured: We do not know what data was used to assess economic harms.

Nor do we know if the ‘Competent Authority Ministers’ was provided with such data.

Making decisions that have affected Islanders financially and emotionally throughout the pandemic, their minutes remain hidden to provide a ‘safe space’ for Ministers involved, like the minutes of the Hospital Political Oversight Group.

Six days after "a rise in cases linked to parties and hospitality venues" had thrown private celebrations for more than 20 people into disarray, did these Ministers’ lobbyists express concern the holding of a rugby dinner for 500 was "out of kilter"?  

Pictured: A gala fundraiser with around 500 attendees featuring the British and Irish Lions was recently allowed to go ahead.

What science and leadership enabled the IoD’s Chair publicly to thank its sponsors (HSBC, the Government of Jersey, Jersey Finance, Jersey Sport, Locate Jersey and Visit Jersey) for "a fabulous evening" on the day announced barriers to incoming travellers from 29 June devastated many business owners outside the finance industry? What allowed masks no longer to be worn in places like supermarkets, even as infected numbers were rising (a freedom delayed in Malta even now)?  

And the economic result so far? Last December, Guernsey’s Treasury forecast Guernsey’s economy (GVA) to have contracted up to 8%. This April, Jersey’s Fiscal Policy Panel estimated Jersey’s GVA to have shrunk by 2% more.

Can government’s economic advisers demonstrate our economy would have been worse without their intervention? Or have they effectively been gambling with islanders’ health and productivity like casino chips?