Contact tracing is working

Tuesday 24 March 2020

They say there is no evidence yet of community seeding, as the officials leading the Bailiwick's fight against covid-19 insisted there were "positives" to be taken from the fact that the testing and detection measures in place are working.

The States of Guernsey provided further updates on the rapidly-evolving corona virus crisis at a press conference yesterday, as officials explained the context behind the news that 18 more people had tested positive over the weekend.

"The number of positives has rapidly increased for one reason only," said Civil Contigencies Authority Chairman Gavin St Pier of the surge in positive tests. "The testing centre we were using in the UK became overwhelmed which introduced significant delays to tests being processed and even threatened them continuing.

"For a few days, we had no new information and we were, in a sense, flying blind, so we decided to tighten our controls even further and earlier than others around us by, for example, introducing mandatory self-isolation for those travelling to the Bailiwick.

A new testing centre was identified for the Bailiwick to use and that is now up and running. 

"The [positive tests] reported since Friday, contain, in fact, very good news," said Deputy St Pier. "Why? Because none of the cases provide any evidence of community transmission or seeding - in other words, all the cases involve those who have returned from travel outside the island. Also the positives prove that the system works because of the earlier decisions to extend testing to detect those at higher risk of acquiring the infection."

"Let me be very clear, we may still need to lockdown - and we might need to do it soon....We will do it - and we will have no hesitation in doing it very quickly - if, and when, the evidence of infection in our local community shows that it is the right thing to do." https://t.co/aKzx5wnUhx

— Gavin St Pier (@gavinstpier) March 23, 2020

Pictured: A community lockdown could yet be enforced, but Deputy St Pier said it is "not the right step" at this point in time. Read more by clicking on his open letter to the public here. 

"The 19 new cases were identified as a result of the enhanced self-isolation requirements, introduced locally to detect imported cases. Contact tracing for the 19 cases was initiated over the weekend and the next seven days will be crucial as we try and ascertain if there has been any onward transmission."

Community transmission is, unfortunately, "inevitable", and when that materialises further consideration will have to be given to additional measures and restrictions.

"It is the rate of community transmission that will dictate the measures we need to take," said Deputy St Pier. "If we get evidence of community seeding before we have our full testing programme up and running — for example if we detect a case of the virus in a hospital patient who has not recently travelled and has not been in contact with another known case— we will almost certainly need to tighten further controls on the community."

Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink said the 18 people who had tested positive for covid-19 over the weekend were "doing well" and that none of them were in-patients. 

"If you look at the averages, we would expect 10% to 15% of those to be inpatients, so the fact that we are not seeing numbers of inpatients is really encouraging."

Pictured: Dr Nicola Brink is leading the local response to covid-19.

Immediate work went into contact tracing those people, who had all travelled back to Guernsey from off-island, and her team was able to identify those 18 positive cases as coming from four clusters of people who had socialised together whilst away.

At this point in time, there is no evidence of community seeding she said. 

There is a further positive to be taken from the fact that local health services are only one piece of equipment away from being able to carry out local testing. That piece of kit is on its way here from Australia and staff have already started training how to use it via Skype ahead of actual testing once it has arrived.

Pictured top: Dr Nicola Brink and Deputy Gavin St Pier.