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States Greffe
Deputy Richard Renouf
Minister for Health and Social Services BY EMAIL
1st October 2020 Dear Minister
Safer Travel Guidelines
I am writing to you in respect of the continually evolving situation with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic and Jersey's ongoing response to the development of appropriate safer travel guidance.
Firstly, the Panel welcomes the new requirement for a second test at day 5 for all inbound travelers from green regions and considers this a positive step forward. However, the Panel is disappointed to note that there is still no requirement for green country arrivals to self-isolate until the results of the first test. The Panel made the recommendation in its interim report that there should be a requirement for all inbound travelers to self-isolate until a negative PCR test is received and was disappointed that this recommendation was rejected by the Minister.
Given the current prevalence of Covid-19 cases in neighbouring countries such as the UK and France, the Panel would urge the Minister to acknowledge this as an early warning sign and to make it a mandatory requirement for all inbound travelers to self-isolate until receiving a negative PCR test result. The Panel does not agree with the current stance taken by Government that this requirement will only come into force once test turnaround times are reduced to 12 hours. The Minister is urged to act now to make this a requirement and to prevent the further possibility of clusters appearing from inbound travel as we move into the winter months.
The Panel welcomes the granular approach taken to regional classifications, although it is acknowledged that this approach relies, to a large extent, on individuals to truthfully declare their travel history for the previous 14 days. As such, the Panel would urge the Minister to outline the approach/message to communications that is being disseminated to inbound travelers stressing the importance of why they must truthfully declare this and any consequences for not doing so.
Lastly, the Panel would like to share its concerns that some overseas mobile network service providers do not receive Government of Jersey text messages. Furthermore, that some traveler devices might be locked to a SIM card and/or network. The Panel would urge the Minister to work to resolve these issues as a matter of urgency and to keep the Panel updated with progress on this.
We would be grateful for a response to the points we have raised above by Friday 9th October 2020. Please note it is the Panel's intention to publish any response it receives on the States Assembly website.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Yours sincerely,
Deputy Robert Ward
Chair, Safer Travel Guidelines Review Panel
cc Senator John Le Fondré, Chief Minister