CCA: "Work from home if you can"

Wednesday 15 December 2021

The Bailiwick is once again being asked to work from home.

The Civil Contingencies Authority is asking people to work from home where they can following a doubling in the number of omicron covid-19 cases in the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday night. The Authority says there is now "the potential to see a large wave in the Bailiwick in the coming weeks".

The Authority is also extending the mandatory requirement to wear a face covering to include cinemas, theatres, concert venues and places of worship with the exception of anyone who is in those venues performing. 

The Authority said: "Increasingly, data indicates a more transmissible variant that will spread quickly leading to significantly higher case numbers than have been seen under other variants, both globally and here in the Bailiwick.

"Currently, the hospital and other health services are preparing for a potential increase in covid patients. However, they do not expect the increase in hospital admissions to be as severe as the increase in overall cases. This continues to be kept under review as more data emerges, but the services are currently confident they are well prepared and will be able to manage.

"The top priority now is to deliver the booster programme as quickly as possible to minimise the numbers of cases requiring hospital or medical treatment."

On Tuesday, the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture announced that States' schools would break up for the holidays after school on Friday this week rather than on Wednesday next week as originally planned. 

Pictured: Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Chairman of the Civil Contingencies Authority, said he and his colleagues were taking a cautious approach by introducing new measures in an effort to limit the spread of the recently-discovered omicron variant of covid-19.

In advance of a public briefing which the Authority hosted last night, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Chairman of the Authority, said that the request to work from home and other new or additional measures represented "a cautious approach" in "a very uncertain time as new data about omicron comes in every day from around the world".

"We have a highly vaccinated community and are well placed to very quickly deliver boosters to all adults," said Deputy Ferbrache.

"We are preparing for all scenarios, including the possibility that we will see a big wave in the next few weeks, potentially much bigger than the one we are just getting over now.

"But through boosting we can certainly reduce the numbers of cases that become very ill and for that reason our hospital team still feel confident of their ability to manage.

"As a community, we can help by trying to slow the rise in cases as much as practically possible, and that is why we’re asking those who can work from home to do so, and more than ever we are urging people to wear a face covering and take their lateral flow tests.

"Even though our hospital is well placed to cope, we know large numbers of cases at one time can cause disruption to businesses and services. While we can hope that does not transpire, we must be prepared in case it does.”

Pictured: Dr Nicola Brink, Medical Officer of Health, made another appeal for people who have not yet had covid-19 vaccines or boosters to arrange to have them as soon as possible in their own and the community's interests. 

Dr Nicola Brink, the Medical Officer of Health, said: “There is a lot still to learn about omicron which means our best predictions right now may be wrong, but what we are seeing is a virus that is much more transmissible and likely to soon become the dominant variant. We will keep updating our own predictions based on the latest data as it arrives, but we could see our own omicron wave very soon.

"We have already very good cooperation from the community when it comes to wearing face coverings and taking lateral flow tests, but we must maintain that now more than ever.

"And most of all, I am appealing to all of those who have not yet taken up the vaccine to do so and for everyone to get their booster, which is absolutely our best means of protection. We need to work together, as we have done over the past almost two years, to protect our community.”