Cautious cleaners need your help

Monday 23 March 2020

Guernsey's army of cleaners are asking their customers to help them protect their staff by warning them in advance if anyone in your home is self-isolating so alternative arrangements can be made.

One firm said they had an incident last week where a member of staff attended a regular appointment and found someone was self-isolating as a result of the corona virus outbreak.

Recent estimates from the States of Guernsey suggest that around one thousand people have been self isolating over the weekend - some of those will have to be by law because they have recently returned to the Bailiwick from Jersey, the UK, or further afield - but others will be self isolating for personal reasons, whether they are in a high risk group or any other similar situation.

On Sunday, the number of positive test results received back from the UK reached 20, with more than 60 still outstanding, meaning the covid-19 pandemic has now taken a hold on the islands. 

While all those patients are known to have recently returned from other areas affected by the pandemic, it is strongly suspected that community seeding has already started to occur - where person to person transmission is happening locally, in people who haven't been away to another affected location. The true number of people who have already contracted covid-19 won't be known until after the test samples start to be assessed locally, which is still at least a couple of weeks away.

With so many people already self-isolating, and more people likely to make that decision to permanently retreat into their own homes this week, the island's cleaning firms are still going about their work to try and service their clients' needs.

Easy Clean said it wants to protect its staff, but is reliant on its customers to help it do that.

“Any Easyclean customers who are self-isolating, please contact the office on 252231 or sales@easyclean.gg to cancel their scheduled cleans," said the firm.

Meanwhile, household management firm Chatelaine had a similar message.

"We would ask to be informed of anyone self isolating in their own home, or if anyone is working from home and doesn't wish to be disturbed or wants to change their booking.

"We will make a decision on each individual case, but our staff are already very careful and are now being additionally cautious."