During a public hearing, Senator John Le Fondré also said that the effect of recent measures, including before the ‘hospitality circuit-breaker’, to combat the spiralling number of coronavirus cases would take some time to have an impact on the rate of infections.
Concerns have grown that the abrupt closure of the hospitality sector last week could have led to ‘super-spreader’ events, with reports that many pubs and bars were overcrowded the night before the measures took effect on Friday 4 December, and an increase in private house parties.
During the hearing of the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, Constable Richard Vibert asked why the hospitality sector had not been given more notice.
Senator Le Fondré said that it was important to strike a balance between taking necessary measures and giving people warning.
He said: ‘I don’t know the level of spread or activity. There are some anecdotal remarks, but there are also others that suggest that, in the main, a number of the establishments behaved responsibly again.’
He added that measures would take some time to take effect on the level of infections and the situation was under review with regard to imposing even tighter restrictions.
‘The other thing that can skew the numbers potentially over the next couple of weeks is the return of Islanders to Jersey. Typically for example, students, but not necessarily just them.
‘There is an initial kind of 24 hours where you may see a spike, which is actually due to people coming in, who previously had Covid-19 and the way that PCR tests pick it up.
‘So it’s not a threat in that perspective, in terms of the sign of massive increase of infection, it’s purely the way the stats can be reported initially. Then they can be corrected.’
Julian Blazeby, director general of the Justice and Home Affairs Department, said that the decision to shut down hospitality was not just due to the activities of customers. ‘It can include staff in enclosed areas, for example in kitchens,’ he said. ‘And also there is the behaviour of the people who attend hospitality venues and then move out of those, whether they’re in taxi ranks or they are milling around in the streets, and that has increased the risks.’
