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The situation today...

The situation today...

Monday 20 April 2020

The situation today...

Monday 20 April 2020


There were no new positive cases of corona virus confirmed in Guernsey yesterday with this morning seeing the Bailiwick on 239 positive cases, and no further deaths recorded over the weekend.

The data analysis of the statistics gathered by Public Health so far suggest the curve is being flattened as the Bailiwick heads into a fourth full week of lockdown ahead of some restrictions being lifted at the weekend.

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Pictured: The latest statistics, as at 16:30 Sunday 19 April.

Of the 239 patients recorded as positive for covid-19, 97 have now fully recovered.

Nine have sadly died after testing positive for the virus, while a further four deaths are recorded as 'presumptive' meaning the patient probably had corona virus but they hadn't been tested at the time they passed away.

Of the patients currently being treated for covid-19 in Guernsey, five are at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, with none needed intensive care support.

There are still no recorded cases of corona virus in any of the other islands of the Bailiwick.

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Pictured: Public Health have been able to group together the positive cases of corona virus in Guernsey. 

A third of corona virus patients remain linked with care homes in Guernsey, while the other cases are grouped together through travel history or community seeding in other areas. Some patients contacted the virus through an unknown source.

Public Health staff have been studying the data gleaned from each case in more detail with further graphs now produced to show the impact of the lockdown on the Bailiwick's part in the global pandemic and different trajectories under different circumstances.

Those can all be found HERE.

To monitor the trajectory of infections in the Bailiwick, Public Health Services said it monitors each positive test result. Each is then plotted against the day that symptoms began (or against testing date if no symptom-onset date is available). 

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Pictured: The curve is being flattened according to data released by Public Health. 

"We are assuming that for each positive test result, that there may be 1.4 actual cases of coronavirus on the Island," said Public Health. This confirms what many suspect, in that the true impact of the corona virus pandemic on the Bailiwick may never be known as the true number of positive patients can not be accurately studied.

"This assumption is based on research which suggests that around 40% of infected individuals may be asymptomatic," said Public Health. 

"In other words we assume that we are detecting all symptomatic cases but missing another 40% who are asymptomatic; this represents the expected proportion of asymptomatic / mild cases that are not recognised as cases. This is then used to estimate the new number of new actual cases each day.

"Using this information the trajectory of the increase of coronavirus cases can be plotted for the Bailiwick. A 5-day moving average is used to adjust for random fluctuation in daily cases and make the curve smoother and easier to analyse."

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Pictured: One of the graphs produced by Public Health, which shows the curve is being flattened. 

Public Health said, what the graph above shows is that, "even allowing for some undercounting, our cases numbers (blue line) have not risen exponentially as one would expect in a model mitigated by social distancing (orange line) alone.

"The grey dotted line shows what would have happened if there had been no mitigation. 

"So, what this shows is that our case numbers are currently stable.  We have so far succeeded in flattening the curves we might otherwise have seen had we not put our actions in place to prevent the on-going transmission of the virus in our community."

There is expected to be a press briefing at 13:00 today, which will be streamed live on the States of Guernsey's Facebook page. 

Dr Nicola Brink is expected to speak on the latest information available regarding case numbers and further information may be given about phase two of the lockdown, which will see some restrictions lifted from this coming Saturday 

 

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