14-day isolation for travellers from Jersey

Tuesday 13 October 2020

Jersey has been moved to Group A - meaning anyone travelling from there to Guernsey will have to self-isolate for 14 days - following the larger Channel Island's spike in positive cases of Covid-19.

The number of active cases in Jersey has been rising for a while, but it accelerated over the weekend when 30 new cases were identified.

The total currently stands at 61, while Guernsey has just two.

Jersey moved to the Group B watchlist last week, but as the island's covid-19 situation continues to worsen, Public Health has taken the decision to move the jurisdiction to the high risk zone.

At the moment, the entirety of the UK and Ireland, excluding the Isle of Man, is also in Group A.   

Pictured: All regions in the UK and Ireland are currently in Group A.

Jersey recently altered its travel policy, which uses a traffic lights system to rank countries; green being the safest and red being the most dangerous. Previously, those arriving from green zone countries didn't have to isolate at all but, as of this week, they now have to quarantine until their first negative test result comes back.

25 of the recently-identified cases were new arrivals; 15 from green zones, seven from amber and three from red.

Although some people in Jersey have been calling for the island to shut its borders completely except for essential travel - as it did during lockdown - the Health Minister is reluctant to do so, saying travel will naturally decrease significantly.

"I heard this morning that many flights are operating at 30% of capacity, which means the airlines are losing money to operate those flights. How long can that continue?" Jersey Deputy Richard Renouf asked. 

"And then we’ve got the situation in the UK where many areas are effectively shut down and people are not able to travel, so whatever travel plans they might have had can no longer be fulfilled.

"So all these things coming together, which are probably going very soon to change what we have experienced around the summer months in terms of travel to the island. Travel will become increasingly more difficult and rarer."

For more information about Guernsey's travel restrictions, click HERE.