The testing time that Guernsey nearly lost the ability to track and trace

Thursday 25 March 2021

Public Health’s strategy to combat corona virus, and its potential to impact the Bailiwick of Guernsey, was always its crowning test, track and trace programme, an initiative that was nearly dashed by the UK.

During the first few weeks of Guernsey’s experience with Covid-19, testing was slow and at one point the track and trace programme could’ve failed completely.

After Guernsey’s first seeded case in March last year, Public Health tried to implement its strategy, but tests needed to be sent to the UK, which, at one point, decided  to stop community testing completely. At the time, the Bailiwick was completely reliant on sending test samples to UK laboratories to check for Covid-19. 

“It was a really worrying time,” then-HSC President, Deputy Heidi Soulsby, told Express. “We weren’t getting any of our tests done. We thought that we might not be doing any testing because the UK decided it wasn’t going to do community testing and that’s what we were reliant on.”

Pictured: “There were some difficult conversations to be had with the UK,” said Deputy Soulsby.

“We had a very slow swab to test result time,” said Director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink. 

“It was four days or so and we were capped at 35 tests a day. It was clear that we didn’t have the tools to cope with a rapid doubling of infections.

“We knew that the community was seeded and we had to respond.”

Pictured: Our increased testing capabilities have been essential for the island’s track and trace programme. 

“It flew in the face of our strategy,” Dr Brink continued. “From the very beginning we had trained up our contact tracers and we said we were going to have a community test, track and trace programme.

“That was our fundamental strategy – we knew we had to increase the testing capacity.”

Following support from the States of Guernsey, and “difficult” conversations with the UK, the island ramped up its testing capabilities to great effect.

“We now have molecular testing capabilities on island that we never had before,” said Dr Brink.

“We can now test 1,500 to 2,000 people per day, compared to the 35 at the start of the first wave. This is something to be incredibly proud of.”