WATCH: We're trying to "flatten the curve"

Friday 27 March 2020

Dr Nicola Brink has taken time out to explain what is happening behind the scenes each time a positive test result for covid-19 is confirmed for someone living in the Bailiwick.

At the time of writing, there are 34 confirmed cases of corona virus in the Bailiwick.

All 34 of those people live in Guernsey. 31 of them contracted the virus off-island and returned home where they have been tested and confirmed to have it.

Of the three cases confirmed to be so-called 'community seeding' - where the virus is passed between people in the island, two of those people have known links to people in the list of those who contracted covid-19 off island.

The first case of community seeding identified in Guernsey was in someone not known to have any links to those who have tested positive since they have returned from being off-island though. Dr Brink described this as "a case of unexplained community seeding of the virus."

Dr Brink said the information they are getting from each case identified is helping them learn more about how the virus is spreading in Guernsey, and that information is then being used to help the islands "flatten the curve" which will reduce the expected peak number of cases we might see, which could have a devastating effect on our healthcare services if too many people are taken ill at the same time.

Dr Nicola Brink from Bailiwick Express on Vimeo.

By the morning of Friday 27 March, 447 people are confirmed to have been tested for corona virus, with 352 negative results and the 34 positives. 61 people are waiting for their results and could throw up some further interesting data for Dr Brink and her team to analyse.

So far she said they have confirmed various source locations for the virus, including one case contracted in Jersey.

"They've got a varied travel history, so that includes Austria, it includes the UK, it includes France. And we've also had one case which we believed acquired the infection in Jersey. So, over the last 24 hours we've been contact tracing those cases, identifying contacts of the cases, and putting those people into compulsory self isolation. 

"So, again as we move forward, it's really important that we flatten the curve, that we identify cases quickly, that we quarantine them, and then contact trace around those cases. So, that process is going on at the moment."

Yes thank you to all those going on duty tonight. I am sending the Public Health Team home now. But we are on call and available for islanders 24/7 #GuernseyTogether #GotThis https://t.co/NHSRpxHP6b

— Nicola Brink (@DrNicolaBrink) March 26, 2020

Dr Brink said her team gets to work immediately on receiving a positive test result to do the initial contact tracing which is important to establish who else might have been infected without them realising.

"It's a massive team effort," she said. "It's working with the community, it's working with our colleagues in primary and secondary care and it's working with people who have been infected with covid-19 and working out where they got the infection from, so we can try and identify contacts and again, as I've said so many times before, flatten the curve."