IOM Covid removing restrictions

[monasqueen 1,027]

As the Channel Islands keep getting mentioned, it may be a good idea to look at how their residents view the situation. 

Comments from readers of the Guernsey Post's recent article include:

"The Isle of Man's system is much safer than ours. It's not their 9 cases all in quarantine against our 13, it's the fact that their system does not allow any arrivals to mix with their population until they have isolated for 14 days. That is the regime that Guernsey moved away from since August 17th.

We do not actually know how many cases we have in the community now. More 'surprise clusters' are inevitable, a large scale outbreak is quite possible. This is what caused the air bridge to be demolished, it is what is creating the need to shelter vulnerable people and could plunge us back into lockdown. Our system is only marginally safer than Jersey's, their infections have slowly risen to 95 known cases currently, a rate of 78.9 per 100k."       and

"It is suspicious that since we gave up on 14 day quarantine and started these different categories (some only needing 7 day quarantine) that we now have fresh outbreaks.

This indicates the 7 day testing is not reliable - which is hardly surprising as it can take up to 14 days for infections to show. Probably, the new cases started after someone 'passed' the 7 day test and went on to develop the virus a few days later.

The 7 day test is unreliable to protect the public from contagion, and we should immediately go back to a blanket 14 day quarantine PLUS a test after 14 days, before allowing potential carriers out into our community."

 

[Banker 1,970]

Just now, monasqueen said:

As the Channel Islands keep getting mentioned, it may be a good idea to look at how their residents view the situation. 

Comments from readers of the Guernsey Post's recent article include:

"The Isle of Man's system is much safer than ours. It's not their 9 cases all in quarantine against our 13, it's the fact that their system does not allow any arrivals to mix with their population until they have isolated for 14 days. That is the regime that Guernsey moved away from since August 17th.

We do not actually know how many cases we have in the community now. More 'surprise clusters' are inevitable, a large scale outbreak is quite possible. This is what caused the air bridge to be demolished, it is what is creating the need to shelter vulnerable people and could plunge us back into lockdown. Our system is only marginally safer than Jersey's, their infections have slowly risen to 95 known cases currently, a rate of 78.9 per 100k."       and

"It is suspicious that since we gave up on 14 day quarantine and started these different categories (some only needing 7 day quarantine) that we now have fresh outbreaks.

This indicates the 7 day testing is not reliable - which is hardly surprising as it can take up to 14 days for infections to show. Probably, the new cases started after someone 'passed' the 7 day test and went on to develop the virus a few days later.

The 7 day test is unreliable to protect the public from contagion, and we should immediately go back to a blanket 14 day quarantine PLUS a test after 14 days, before allowing potential carriers out into our community."

 

It’s easy to pick random comments out to support any view but the majority of population are in favour of new borders plan as it allows families etc to visit, also Howie was a bit of a joke there for closing air bridges with so few cases 

[Nom de plume 1,603]

5 minutes ago, monasqueen said:

As the Channel Islands keep getting mentioned, it may be a good idea to look at how their residents view the situation. 

Comments from readers of the Guernsey Post's recent article include:

"The Isle of Man's system is much safer than ours. It's not their 9 cases all in quarantine against our 13, it's the fact that their system does not allow any arrivals to mix with their population until they have isolated for 14 days. That is the regime that Guernsey moved away from since August 17th.

We do not actually know how many cases we have in the community now. More 'surprise clusters' are inevitable, a large scale outbreak is quite possible. This is what caused the air bridge to be demolished, it is what is creating the need to shelter vulnerable people and could plunge us back into lockdown. Our system is only marginally safer than Jersey's, their infections have slowly risen to 95 known cases currently, a rate of 78.9 per 100k."       and

"It is suspicious that since we gave up on 14 day quarantine and started these different categories (some only needing 7 day quarantine) that we now have fresh outbreaks.

This indicates the 7 day testing is not reliable - which is hardly surprising as it can take up to 14 days for infections to show. Probably, the new cases started after someone 'passed' the 7 day test and went on to develop the virus a few days later.

The 7 day test is unreliable to protect the public from contagion, and we should immediately go back to a blanket 14 day quarantine PLUS a test after 14 days, before allowing potential carriers out into our community."

 

I don’t think anybody is disputing the effectiveness of our ‘Gold Standard’ measures but it is not a long term acceptable policy.

We must introduce risk at some point to allow freedoms, it’s that simple.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Nom de plume

[Banker 1,970]

14 minutes ago, Cambon said:

It has taken a while for Covid to get into the community in Jersey. Guernsey is still 14 days isolation.

Depends where you come from , Jersey arrivals are 7 days plus tests. Jersey have carried out 160k tests and have 97 with none in hospital despite you making up things to say they have 

[monasqueen 1,027]

I picked those comments because most people on here seem to think that the Channel Islands systems are wonderful.

[Nom de plume 1,603]

Just now, monasqueen said:

I picked those comments because most people on here seem to think that the Channel Islands systems are wonderful.

They aren’t wonderful. Nobody says they are - you are being very silly now.

They are effective, well planned, allow movement & mitigate risk in a very tough situation.

[Max Power 6,740]

7 minutes ago, Banker said:

It’s easy to pick random comments out to support any view but the majority of population are in favour of new borders plan as it allows families etc to visit, also Howie was a bit of a joke there for closing air bridges with so few cases 

Howie wasn't the first to close the air bridge, the announcement came from Guernsey initially.

It doesn't matter how much we debate this, we are not in full possession of all of the latest information. It seems that we are expecting our government to come up with a satisfactory Covid solution which will satisfy most of the population, when there doesn't seem to be one elsewhere in the world! It's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't! Everyone advocating an easing of border controls would run a mile if this led to an uncontrollable outbreak. Likewise, our locked borders are harming our relationships with the outside world but seem to be keeping us reasonably free of the virus. Personally, I'm not sure that herd immunity has been proven, at least for the long term. Despite us having been affected by this virus for just over seven months, it isn't fully understood, despite the resources which have been thrown at it!  

[trmpton 1,255]

20 minutes ago, monasqueen said:

I picked those comments because most people on here seem to think that the Channel Islands systems are wonderful.

People aren’t saying that at all.

People are saying that their approach appears to be a much more realistic balance of risk vs reward and have a more obvious pathway.

Not allowing family members or friends to visit full stop, even with 14 day isolation, and even then stating that when that restriction does lift it will initially be for Manx passport holders only - is absolutely disgusting and has no scientific basis whatsoever.  My wife Mum can’t come and see her and doesn’t look like she will be able to for months, but if someone who has never been here and has no family ties whatsoever is able to buy a house here they can come over tomorrow - how does that work?

We can’t live in a stupid little (never intended) COVID free bubble forever and they NEED to start allow sponsored family and friend visits.

Give me a single reason my my wife’s retired mother shouldn’t be able to come and stay with us for a few weeks.  She can isolate with the wife and neither would have an issue being tagged if it made people feel better and I am perfectly prepared to sponsor the visit and commit to jail time if either of them break the isolation.  It’s a safer situation than residents travelling back at the moment who mix with family.

What possible logic is there for depriving my wife and her Mum some time together which they both desperately need?  Once the two weeks is up they would even be out and about spending more money as we would have an extra moth to feed and would help the Steam Packet put an extra few quid through the till.

[TheTeapot 11,366]

11 minutes ago, Max Power said:

Howie wasn't the first to close the air bridge, the announcement came from Guernsey initially.

That's because, if you remember, our government delayed their press conference to get that to happen.

[John Wright 8,916]

12 minutes ago, Max Power said:

Howie wasn't the first to close the air bridge, the announcement came from Guernsey initially.

That rather misses the points and facts. Guernsey didn’t change its air bridge regulations, which still list the IoM as an unrestricted destination, as far as I can ascertain.

IoM removed Guernsey from its air bridge regulations destinations list. That’s what closed it down.

That the announcements of closure came out in reverse order is neither here nor there.

[Nom de plume 1,603]

4 minutes ago, trmpton said:

People aren’t saying that at all.

People are saying that their approach appears to be a much more realistic balance of risk vs reward and have a more obvious pathway.

Not allowing family members or friends to visit full stop, even with 14 day isolation, and even then stating that when that restriction does lift it will initially be for Manx passport holders only - is absolutely disgusting and has no scientific basis whatsoever.  My wife Mum can’t come and see her and doesn’t look like she will be able to for months, but if someone who has never been here and has no family ties whatsoever is able to buy a house here they can come over tomorrow - how does that work?

We can’t live in a stupid little (never intended) COVID free bubble forever and they NEED to start allow sponsored family and friend visits.

Give me a single reason my my wife’s retired mother shouldn’t be able to come and stay with us for a few weeks.  She can isolate with the wife and neither would have an issue being tagged if it made people feel better and I am perfectly prepared to sponsor the visit and commit to jail time if either of them break the isolation.  It’s a safer situation than residents travelling back at the moment who mix with family.

What possible logic is there for depriving my wife and her Mum some time together which they both desperately need?  Once the two weeks is up they would even be out and about spending more money as we would have an extra moth to feed and would help the Steam Packet put an extra few quid through the till.

There is no possible justification.

It is cruel, unnecessary & the stuff of medieval times.

Quite frankly, it’s disgusting.

[Nom de plume 1,603]

2 minutes ago, John Wright said:

That rather misses the points and facts. Guernsey didn’t change its air bridge regulations, which still list the IoM as an unrestricted destination, as far as I can ascertain.

IoM removed Guernsey from its air bridge regulations destinations list. That’s what closed it down.

That the announcements of closure came out in reverse order is neither here nor there.

Because once again HQ backtracked on what was deemed acceptable risk.

He pandered, wobbled & essentially submitted to the pitchfork mob.

[trmpton 1,255]

2 minutes ago, Nom de plume said:

Because once again HQ backtracked on what was deemed acceptable risk.

He pandered, wobbled & essentially submitted to the pitchfork mob.

True

Policy is currently being dictated by a load of Mums who are hone all day and retired or unemployed people who spend all day venting on FB and have no idea about business or other people’s circumstances.

I am currently sat outside a clients house waiting for them to come hone for a 12:00 meeting before any smart arse pipes up about me being on here in the day, and have been working since 6am

[trmpton 1,255]

15 minutes ago, trmpton said:

People aren’t saying that at all.

People are saying that their approach appears to be a much more realistic balance of risk vs reward and have a more obvious pathway.

Not allowing family members or friends to visit full stop, even with 14 day isolation, and even then stating that when that restriction does lift it will initially be for Manx passport holders only - is absolutely disgusting and has no scientific basis whatsoever.  My wife Mum can’t come and see her and doesn’t look like she will be able to for months, but if someone who has never been here and has no family ties whatsoever is able to buy a house here they can come over tomorrow - how does that work?

We can’t live in a stupid little (never intended) COVID free bubble forever and they NEED to start allow sponsored family and friend visits.

Give me a single reason my my wife’s retired mother shouldn’t be able to come and stay with us for a few weeks.  She can isolate with the wife and neither would have an issue being tagged if it made people feel better and I am perfectly prepared to sponsor the visit and commit to jail time if either of them break the isolation.  It’s a safer situation than residents travelling back at the moment who mix with family.

What possible logic is there for depriving my wife and her Mum some time together which they both desperately need?  Once the two weeks is up they would even be out and about spending more money as we would have an extra moth to feed and would help the Steam Packet put an extra few quid through the till.

Actually, I suppose there is a very very small risk that my MIL who hasn’t left her house in Something like 9 months might bring the killer lhergy into our house and she and the wife would then obviously be dead with a fortnight.  Still a much lower risk than students coning home though (which I obviously have no issue with at all)

[Roger Mexico 10,657]

43 minutes ago, Nom de plume said:

I reckon you’re definitely one of that lot that reckons the Nightingale hospitals were built as a con job to fool the UK population even though there wasn’t any staff to run them .......

Even Boris Johnson, a buffoon of unrivalled aptitude, wouldn’t spunk billions of pounds on hospitals unless they were going to be needed which they weren’t & aren’t - EVER.

I can't tell if this post is sarcastic or not.  Because of course that's exactly what the Nightingale Hospitals were - something to make the UK Government look like it was doing something useful when it wasn't.  The purpose was to look good in the media and the media accepted it mostly without question.  There never could be the staff to run them and any question about who would was met with hand-waving about volunteers.

But they were needed, if only to cope with Covid-infected patients (especially older ones) being prematurely discharged from hospital so that those even more seriously ill could be dealt with.  Instead such people ended up in care homes, causing more outbreaks and deaths.