Origins of corona virus in the community unknown

Sunday 24 January 2021

Guernsey’s second full lockdown has been triggered by the discovery of four cases of corona virus in the community, yet where they originated from is so far unknown.

The absence of any travel history, links to a case or contact with a traveller has been of great concern to Public Health.

Guernsey’s Director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink, summed up the series of events that led to lockdown 2.0. We know that at 16:40 on  Friday, four positive cases were brought to the attention of Dr Brink.

Pictured: The Civil Contingencies Authority worked through the night to plan for Guernsey's second lockdown.

Those four cases were recorded from four separate individuals in Guernsey and after contact tracing and further investigation was undertaken, it was learnt that these people had no travel history or contact with infected people.

The four people had been symptomatic, sought advice, were tested and found positive for Covid-19. Contact tracing started within one hour of these results.

We know three of these people are adults and one person is a teenager. The teenager in question was from year 8 at St Sampson’s High School.

Pictured: St Sampson's High School has released a statement on Facebook.

Due to enhanced testing capabilities in the island, Dr Nicola Brink put a specific call out for people to get in touch.

“One person had an association with the Ship & Crown and the Crow’s Nest,” said Dr Brink, “so we’re asking everyone who was in the Ship & Crown or the Crow’s Nest between 18 and 20 January to contact us.”

It has been stressed that we should not contact Public Health by phone, we should instead email testresults@gov.gg

We’re being told not to worry if the numbers of positive tests in Guernsey start rising, with increased testing this is to be expected.

“I don’t think we’ll be surprised if we see more positive cases,” said Dr Brink.