Care homes go back into precautionary lockdown

Wednesday 21 October 2020

Many care homes in Guernsey have closed their doors to visitors, as uncertainty over the community prevalence of covid-19 in the island remains.

Public Health announced earlier this week that it was unsure of where the latest positive case had picked up the virus - a situation Dr Nicola Brink described as "unusual".

Since then, many nursing and residential homes have closed to visitors with immediate effect. Although CI Healthcare has said it was "advised" by Public Health to make the temporary changes, Health & Social Care has said the care homes' decisions were independent.

"We haven't been advised [by Public Health] but we've made the sensible decision to temporarily close to visitors and stop people from going out due to the uncertainty of the community prevalence," said Matron of St John's Residential Home and Chair of the Guernsey Care Managers Association, Sue Fleming.

"We have the most vulnerable people in the community in our care homes, so we are taking the decision to protect our residents, until we have the full information."

The care homes are planning to review their decisions regularly, in line with any updates from Public Health.

It has been confirmed today that a second person has tested positive and that the 'index case' has not been outside the Bailiwick in the last two weeks.