This is a very rough and unverified transcript of the Isle of Man Government’s Coronavirus Media Briefing held on Monday 12 April 2021. In particular, for any legal guidance, you should seek advice from official sources.
You should not rely heavily upon it — it is transcribed by an automated speech recognition service, and I cannot guarantee its accuracy. Any local Manx words (especially in Gaelic) are more likely to be inaccurate. Also, the automated speech recognition service often converts proper nouns incorrectly (especially the spoken words “Isle of Man” to “Ireland” or “all of man”).
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I obviously do not own the copyright in the underlying words (eg, whatever has been said by the speakers) and I am providing these transcripts because they are of self-evident public interest. I think that I do own the copyright in the adaption/conversion into written text. I’m happy to license these transcripts publicly under a free and very open Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Howard Quayle 0:00
Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. I’m here at the podium with the Minister for health and social care. Our Minister for Education, sport and culture and our Director of Public Health are on zoom. Let’s start with the health and social care minister bringing us the latest key data. David.
David Ashford 0:17
Thank you, Chief Minister. The total number of tests undertaken now stands at 49,283. The total number of tests completed also stands at 49,283. So there is no one awaiting results from the lab. new cases over the last 24 hours is zero, meaning our total number of cases remains at 1575. We have 30 active cases, and none of those are in hospital on a couple of other points in relation to shielding. Today shielding advice entered. However, we would urge employers to engage with employees who have been shielding about their personal circumstances, to see if measures need to put be put in place in the workplace to assist with their return to work. Turning also to vaccines. Many people will remember that a few weeks ago, we spoke about supply disruption that was due to take place in the middle of April. It is this weekend into next week that we’ll see the greatest impact on supply. And that means people will say lower numbers of vaccines being delivered than the high numbers people have got used to over the last month or so. So people will see the numbers of vaccines delivering drop, deliver dropping to around 400 a day for the next week. This is down to the supply disruption we have already spoken about, after which people will see stocks and delivery of jobs into arms increase once again. Thank you, Chief Minister.
Howard Quayle 1:48
Thank you very much, David, it’s great to see no one in our hospital with COVID. It’s also wonderful to see another day of no cases. And most importantly, today is the 14th day without any cases that we could not explain. As I’m sure our Director of Public Health will remind us, this is not the end of the story. But it is an important milestone, nevertheless, a good moment for me to hand over to Dr. Yu at for her regular update. Talk to you.
Henrietta Ewart 2:17
Thank you, Chief Minister, there’s not really an awful lot for me to add, obviously, the figures are very much doing exactly what we want them to do. And now that we have 14 days, that’s wonderful incubation period COVID. Clear of the last unexplained community case, we can be increasingly confident that we don’t have ongoing transmission in the community. So that is obviously excellent news. And when we couple that with the progress of the vaccination programme, the increasing good news coming out from the monitoring of the vaccine effectiveness that is being done by Public Health England cross, which has recently shown they’re published in the last couple of days, the latest monitoring data, which shows the considerable impact that the vaccination programme has already had on reducing numbers of deaths across. So that’s another piece of excellent news. And then of course, the falling rates across is also good news for them for us. Thank you.
Howard Quayle 3:22
Thank you, as always talk to you it. So this does mean we are able to start to look more optimistically at the future. And this is what the Council of Ministers has been doing and will be doing this week. You will be accustomed by now to hearing major announcements on Thursdays. This is what we plan to do this week. One important aspect of our island life that has taken an important step back to normality today is our schools, preschools and childcare. Let me invite the Minister of Education, sport and culture to bring us up to date. Alex,
Alex Allinson 3:58
thank you stay in machs not the step out of the current lockdown and towards a different phase in response to the pandemic. I’m grateful to children, young people and their parents for their patience as we reopen schools today and get ready to start welcoming some students back from tomorrow. The last 12 months has really demonstrated the dedication and resilience of our hard working teachers and all the staff and keep our schools open and safe. I’d like to thank the lecturers and staff at UCM who’ve been working to support students getting close to the end of their courses, who need to complete assignments, and also assessments. We’ve also been working to support child minders, nurseries and playgroups to reopen. childcare staff are often overlooked, but we owe them a great deal of thanks for the support they give to working families and the key role they’ll play as our economy recovers. Thank you, Chief Minister.
Howard Quayle 4:55
Thank you very much, Alex and I would like to add my personal thanks to our teachers school staff. All those working in preschool settings for everything they are doing. A safe return to school for our young people is so important, not just for their education, their social development and their mental health, but also for our economy. Education and Kyle chair has such an important role to play to support parents returning to work. I told you last week that we were looking at decisions relating to a number of our current measures, and that is what we plan to do. If the data remains as strong as it appears today, I am hopeful that from the 19th of April, we will be able to lift a significant amount of the restrictions that are in place. It may not be everything in one go, it may be that we will need to keep some measures in place for just a little longer. But as far as possible, we do want to step out of your lives as soon as we possibly can. And as possibly we want to get in a place where it is for us to tell you about the risks and how best to minimise them, and then for you to make the right decisions for you and those around you. There are some final details that we need to work throughout the next couple of days. And we will let you know exactly what Monday will look like after the council of ministers meeting on Thursday. This week, we will be able to continue our work on our longer term approach. Tomorrow the Council of Ministers will be coming together with the rest of tingled to discuss what the island might look like in the months ahead, including relating to the really tricky question of our borders. I’ve said before the government doesn’t have a monopoly on good ideas Far from it. We will be listening to members and using their input and their ideas to refresh our strategy. And we will publish the outcome soon. It does seem clear that in one way or another, we will have to deal with COVID for some time to come. The vaccination programme has already made and will continue to make a real difference. Our most vulnerable are being protected and the risk to our health service is being reduced. But the basics that have got us to where we are today will remain important. We must not forget the skills we have built up over this pandemic so far. We will need them again. some form of social distancing might be needed in the future. As my face coverings in certain settings, hand hygiene will continue to be important. The importance of well well ventilated spaces is another thing that we have learned is important in minimising risk. Another way that we will be trying to use as many different views as possible. And listen to them is an emergency of is the emergency advisory group that we are establishing the idea of the group emerged after debates and templed. The purpose is to provide impartial, informed and independent advice to the Council of Ministers. As we go ahead into the next phases of our dealings with COVID. The Council of Ministers is now looking to appoint on a voluntary basis, external professionals to the group. There are a wide range of areas in which we are seeking expertise, as well as those with a background in health and social care or science and technology. We are also looking for those who can bring expertise in other areas such as legal business, logistics, emergency response, and communications. If you think that you have something to offer and would like to be involved, you can find find full details on the public appointments page of the government website. And applications are open until Sunday. Let’s go to questions now. And first we have some terton from Jeff Good afternoon Sam customise
Unknown Speaker 8:46
festival
Unknown Speaker 8:46
chief civic stock fair
Unknown Speaker 8:48
question from a really here. It’s about the border situation and the policy that was written last year. And asking given that we’ve now vaccinated most of them will people in our society is not worth looking again at the border strategy to say instead of three a wheel completely working. And isn’t that worth asking the public necessarily what they think beyond just them each case?
Howard Quayle 9:09
Well, thanks, Sam, for that question. I think subject to everything continuing to go in the right way. We’ve said that by the end of this month, we hope to move to three a to allow family and partners and people who’ve got a legal attachment to the island whether that be owning of property, I think that would be the best first step and then the next stage sometime not too far in the distance after if that works, and obviously a testing regime will still have to be put in place. Then we move to allowing people to come to the islands subject to restrictions based on the area that they come from.
Unknown Speaker 9:48
And just checking into the question we’ve had in regarding the steam packet review people wondering how that’s going and when we expect the
Howard Quayle 9:54
report to be ready for that. Yeah, it’s due at the end of April. By the end of April salmon ice spoke To the team only last week, and they said it was on track.
Unknown Speaker 10:04
And they still weren’t into the same scope was up in expanded at all.
Howard Quayle 10:07
It hasn’t been expanded since we last spoke. So the the scope has been published on our on our website. It’s been sent out to everyone. So it’s free for all to see, but I hope to be able to see it in the next couple of weeks. Hey, thanks very much, Sam. Next we have Alex foul from all of BBC Ireland, ma’am. Good afternoon, Alex foster my
Unknown Speaker 10:29
Good afternoon. At the UK nations have moved another step on many of them with unlocking today, certainly in England and Wales. Can you give the public hearing assurance that by this time next week, we will be significantly ahead of the UK nations again, in terms of our own unlocking?
Howard Quayle 10:46
Yes, subject to the data being as strong as it is Alex, we will be I would be disappointed if we weren’t back to where we were before the lockdown. The data is looking good, we’ve got no one in hospital. And we’ve gone 14 days today without anything in the community. Obviously, we still have 3030 active cases, but they’re in isolation. So as long as the nothing significant changes, then we will be back to normal. And and let’s remind remind ourselves that unlike the UK, we had over 200 days, in the last 12 months where we had a normal life where our young people went to school and all businesses on the island were able to carry on and we’re all able to work as normal.
Unknown Speaker 11:29
Thank you and to build slightly on the last set of questions there. And we’ll move to level three a have borders, bring with it any reduction or change in self isolation rules.
Howard Quayle 11:41
Well, that’s what’s being looked at at the moment are like somewhere having conversations with timbal members tomorrow and a workshop to discuss that way forward. Obviously, there has to be change to that strategy, if we’re going to be allowing people to come to the island. And we need to ensure that that’s in place. And I sincerely hope we can have it in place for the end of the month.
Unknown Speaker 12:00
Thank you.
Howard Quayle 12:02
Thanks very much, Alex, we now move on to Paul Moulton from Alamin. Television. Good afternoon, Paul faster. My
Paul Moulton 12:08
Good afternoon. You’re saying that there’s no one in hospital with COVID I’ve been hearing from this gentleman that he went in this is probably go with COVID. But for something else very serious. He was in hospital had a test and he was positive. Then he had another test a little while ago and was negative. And then he had another test the final test and it proved positive again. And this happened. And that was being discharged today straightaway. Almost after having the test it appears. Is this just keep that number zero. I mean, is this what we should expect? Are you being completely open and honest about those sort of things? And should we be worried if someone’s tested positive they should be discharged?
Howard Quayle 12:43
Well, first and foremost, before I bring on the health minister, it’s not going to massage figures, Paul, because he’d already been declared as having a positive case early on. So if he came back, he wouldn’t be declared again, because he’d already been recorded in the figures. And it wouldn’t impact any decisions that we make. So just want to clear that one up. But I’ll let David, if David knows anything, and because obviously we don’t get to know individual cases. But David may know something.
David Ashford 13:09
Yeah, I can’t comment on individual cases. You know, Paul, what I’ve What I can say is what the purpose of these figures are, because that’s what we’ve all go back to, the purpose of declaring the number of fit COVID positive patients in hospital is to show that the pressure the hospital is under at any one time. So if there’s pressures on the COVID Ward, if there’s pressures in ICU, so people can in a transparent way, see what the hospital has happened to deal with. Because again, we have to go back to the measures last year and why all these restrictions are brought in. One of the crucial things was about protecting the capacity of our NHS. So if the person is discharged from hospital, while they may still be an active case, they are not affecting the delivery of services in the hospital. So that is what that hospital figure is. It’s not saying that someone has been in hospital is now elsewhere. It is physically the number of people in the hospital, and that currently is zero.
Paul Moulton 14:02
My next question is this dreaded word herding. We keep hearing now the UK is about to reach herd immunity. It’s something that if we’re on the same path in the sense of proportionally getting the same amount of vaccines. Is that something because you haven’t mentioned that word at all? Is that something now that is in your timetable going forward when we have our own herd immunity built up to such an effect that we can really start living with this?
Howard Quayle 14:25
Okay, I don’t know whether David, you want to tackle that and then Dr. You would promote? Yeah,
David Ashford 14:29
yeah. If I can come in chief minister, and then I’ll bring director public health in I worry about the phrase herd immunity because herd immunity is a very specific phrase. That actually means once you’ve built up a certain amount of protection, everyone else within a community can be protected. Even with the vaccine, it does not guarantee someone cannot contract COVID and pass it on to someone else. They can say the transmission is looking very good though. It’s a reduction in transmission from the vaccine, but it’s not absolute. So I think the the word And the phrase herd immunity in certainly in some of the media in the UK is being used a bit out of context of what herd immunity is? Because certainly I’ve not seen any evidence to show that a herd immunity is occurring from COVID-19. But I’ll bring in the Director of Public Health.
Henrietta Ewart 15:17
Thank you, Minister. Yes, absolutely agree with the comments you’ve just made there. I think the source of this specific question links back to a modelling study that was published last week. And I think it was by a team from University College London, in which they were forecasting that herd immunity either had been or was about to be reached, certainly in England, UK. And we’re postulating the the positive consequences of that. Their modelling and their forecasting has been quite severely critiqued by others with expertise in this field. And I think I’m right in saying that the group that published this model actually have form in respect to publishing very over optimistic models around projections for COVID. And it’s impacting the past. So I think this particular study is not one we would give any particular rate weight to. And the comments that the minister has just made about the difficulty of defining exactly what is meant by herd immunity, given the uncertainties around the impact of the vaccine across all potential outcomes, you know, it’s too too soon to be talking about, and we certainly don’t know what level of coverage would need to be reached, to effectively stop transmission, which is what we’d really be talking about without immunity.
Paul Moulton 16:48
And, uh, once everyone’s had the vaccine, once it that should be it, shouldn’t it to some degree, I mean, it gets to the point where, you know, 80% of the population is being done, we would therefore be living with it because of the vaccination.
Howard Quayle 17:04
Well, obviously, I think we’ve always said, Paul, once we’ve vaccinated our most vulnerable groups, that’s the one, two groups one to nine, then we can start to make changes to our policies, 99% of the population of our vulnerable population will then have been vaccinated. That’s what we’ve been working to. That’s why we’ve put so much hard work into delivering what I think has been an outstanding vaccination programme and a credit to all the people we’re on track to deliver that. And by the end of May, I think everyone will have had their, the vaccinations from that group. So thank you very much. Next we have Paul Hardman from alleman newspapers. Good afternoon, Paul, faster.
Unknown Speaker 17:44
My afternoon ministers.
Unknown Speaker 17:46
My first question from the health minister, do we have a running figure for the number of people who have received first dose vaccination letters, but have not taken these up and booked an appointment? And also, is there a figure for people who have cancelled their appointments for AstraZeneca vaccines
David Ashford 18:02
in terms of AstraZeneca, I believe it’s about 400 people that cancelled but that doesn’t mean they haven’t re registered sense because we don’t keep that data. So although initially when the news around AstraZeneca came out, and again, I would urge people that they should still keep their appointments, they still should book to actually say how many people haven’t booked around going to book, we have to remember that that’s very hard to do, because the letters are continuously rolling out. So there isn’t an a defined figure for that. Because people may, for instance, be in the 70 year old category. They’ve had the letter for several weeks, and for whatever reason they’ve held on to it, but they might be planning to book this week or next week, there will be a mop up session done towards the end of the vaccination programme, where we’re looking to work hopefully with the GPS to for them to be able to contact people who we know haven’t had the vaccination, and see if they can be encouraged to have it. But it is it is personal choice vaccination, we have to remember that. And you know, it’s not a compulsive thing. And for whatever reasons, there will be people who won’t take up the offer.
Unknown Speaker 19:06
Thank you. My second question for Dr. Johnson. With the prospect of border restrictions easing has any thought been given the case of UK sports teams visiting for fixtures? Is there been a discussion of say same day pre departure testing for teams that fly in and out in one day, and likewise for Manx residents travelling off Island participate in high level competition? Is any possibility been discussed that would allow them to return without isolating?
Alex Allinson 19:33
Well, thank you for a very interesting question. One of the things that obviously counsellors there’s a keen to progress in terms of border policy is a commitment to look first at family and friends, those people who have been separated for over a year now not being able to join together, but you make a very good point about visiting teams either way, but also visiting artists as well. We have Villa gayety. We have a whole range of shows plans for later. From the, we will have to look really quite carefully at how we can safely bring people over to the island to perform or to compete in sports. And similarly for our own people to do that in the United Kingdom. This will be part of the whole review of the borders policy, as we move past May into June or July. But again, the first commitment has to be for those close family and friends to allow them to meet up together. But following on from that, absolutely, we’ll be looking at trying to get with sporting life of the Alabama and the artistic life of the Isle of Man back on track. Thank you.
Howard Quayle 20:34
Thank you. Thank you very much, Paul. Now we move on to the uncock from three FM.
Leanne Cook 20:43
Oh, good afternoon, Chief Minister. Sorry, my signal went out for a second. Can you hear me? Okay. My first question is for the health minister. And it’s just in relation to the madona vaccine. I know in previous conferences, you’ve indicated it will be available in Ireland, potentially sometime in the approved weeks, I wondered if you now have more of an idea of a definite date as to when it will be available.
David Ashford 21:07
We don’t have the the PG D, which is documentation still needs to be signed off by the force to use it. as well.
Leanne Cook 21:22
Okay, thank you. And my second question is for the Education Minister, it’s actually a question we’ve had from a parent. They’ve asked if it’s decided that all children are back in school for next Monday? Will the attendance be compulsory, or compare it to a class as vulnerable? Wait till the following week to see if anything happens once some restrictions are lifted?
Alex Allinson 21:46
I mean, thank you very much for that question. And the answer to it is that attendance will be voluntary. Certainly for the next couple of weeks, we understand that the people need to do their own risk assessment understands that both on vulnerable children and vulnerable adults may be a little bit wary of going straight to school. You know what, when we can hopefully reopen it on next week, what we’ll be doing is working with those parents and ask them to discuss their concerns with their head teachers support them during the transition back to normality. Thank you.
Howard Quayle 22:19
Thank you very much. And thank you. Contact me, right. All right, we move on to
Rob Pritchard (3FM) 22:33
Yes, faster, my Director of Public Health. First question is to the education minister. I just wanted to know the role of the departments in the planned reopening the phased reopening of schools because seem to be different approaches from different schools. Have you considered testing? And can you just explain ventilation, open windows, but also the systems the air systems is?
Howard Quayle 23:07
Could you repeat that last sentence, Tim, we sadly we got cut off. We seem to be experiencing bad connection here. I will alone we got to ventilation.
Rob Pritchard (3FM) 23:17
Yeah, I was just wondering about obviously, we know about open windows, but it’s also has ventilation systems in areas of schools, which don’t have windows? Is that an area of concern?
Howard Quayle 23:33
We can unmute Alex, please.
Alex Allinson 23:35
Yeah. Thanks for sharing been. In terms of the role of the department and all this, we’re very much there to to advise and support our teachers and their staff deliver education, we’ve been working quite closely with them over the exam schedule, for instance, obviously, physical exams have been cancelled. But we’re doing a lot of work with the various examination boards to make sure that young people get the right sort of assessments get vaguely they get their assignments on time so they can get the grades they deserve. You’ve talked a little bit about testing. And obviously in the United Kingdom, we’ve seen a rollout of optional twice weekly testing for all school children, and also in universities as well. We’ve looked at that in terms of I don’t want to man context, we’re in a difficult a different position here because we’ve got, hopefully no virus left on the island or extremely low levels. So what we’re doing is symptomatic testing for young people and against them message that if you do feel unwell or you have COVID symptoms, to dial 111 good advice, get tested, but to the levels of routine asymptomatic testing, we’d have to be doing 1000s just to pick up perhaps one case, and also we’ve got to realise that the testing itself is really quite uncomfortable, require an intrusive thing to do. And some parents have told me that if they had to do regular system they wouldn’t want to send their children went to school. So try to get that balance right and trying to calculate the risk, or we have offered is for routine testing, training. Improve staff who wants it, particularly teachers, so that they can have that assurance that they’re well going into school and won’t be spreading any of the virus. You mentioned, um, ventilation and air systems in schools, obviously, we have a range of different schools on the island go, which have been built in different times. And so the ventilation systems are very different. What we have done in terms of a risk assessment is do some of the really deep claims that we need to do checking for things like salmonella and some of ventilation systems, particularly when schools have been shut down for large periods of time. And especially last year, we’re also looking at increasing ventilation through windows through keeping doors open those sort of things. And also using outdoor areas for learning teaching. Whenever possible, we will be looking further more closely at other ways that we can optimise ventilation systems, to bring in filtration to actually try to clean up the air as much as possible. As we go into very much a mitigation stage with the treatments, the signals, we’re now increasingly moving into, because of the vaccination programme, because of the success in the automated community of driving down the amount of virus on the island, but also because the situation across the United Kingdom with decreasing numbers of patients. Thank you, Chief Minister. Thank you, Tim.
Rob Pritchard (3FM) 26:15
And secondly, you mentioned Chief Minister, you wanted to open the air bridge to Guernsey as quickly as is humanly possible that’s triggered a lot of questions from our listeners who are saying, what about other destinations? And is there a danger with no known dates yet? That we’re going to fall behind other jurisdictions and missed the boat on visitors?
Howard Quayle 26:40
Well, no, I think that’s something that we’re working on in the Council of Ministers with timbul. This week, Tim, is that we will be looking on our border strategy to move forward as quickly as we can, the vaccination process has gone exceptionally well, we can’t be complacent, we are reliant on getting our fair share of the vaccine to the Ireland from the United Kingdom. But the first one it should be fairly simple is Guernsey because they have been following very similar rules and regulations to ourselves. And therefore, they will it’s just a case of that will be the very first one. But it’s not going to cause any delays to us looking with the United Kingdom, we don’t have any direct. And I don’t expect us to have any direct links with any other jurisdictions. But the UK will be the area that we will travel to other than than Guernsey and I hope that given the position we find ourselves in now the number of cases in the UK, and our vaccine programme being where it is that we can move on as quickly as possible.
Rob Pritchard (3FM) 27:39
Just on that we’ve talked about, obviously, the isolation periods. But are you looking with just two ports of entry? Are you looking at any sort of testing regimes?
Howard Quayle 27:49
Yes, obviously, we’re going to have to look at various testing regimes whether that will be at the airport, and this and this, the C terminal. But that’s what’s being considered. Now, Tim, we’ll be discussing this over the next week or two with our 10 male colleagues as well as co men and are our advisors. But yeah, well. Hopefully things are moving on the UK is in a much better position. Were coming out of a a bad outbreak of COVID-19. But we’re moving forward well now. And I’m cautiously optimistic that we can move on our borders as quickly as possible. Thank you very much. All right. Last but not least, we have Simon Richardson from business 365. Good afternoon, Simon faster. My
Paul Moulton 28:32
Good afternoon, Chief Minister. Using the Open Data listed on government’s COVID website. we’ve calculated first dose vaccination rates on the 12th of February in order to compare with the first dose rates today and as expected, the good news is that it’s a remarkable contrast. So with the new high levels of protection through vaccination of our priority groups, together with great progress in the vaccination of younger groups, should further cases occur after April 19. Are we now in a confident position to move straight to simple mitigation measures such as face masks, rather than hard lockdowns, which are obviously causing so much misery to people in business?
Howard Quayle 29:15
Thanks, Simon. It’s a good question. I’ve said before now that I don’t want us to have another lockdown. We have to accept that once we allow family and friends and then open the borders up to people coming in to the island that we will see cases of COVID-19 on the island and we may have to implement some measures but I sincerely hope that we do not ever have to go back into another lockdown. We will have our population vaccinated in a very short period of time with that protection there. And then we will have to learn to live with it. There will be booster vaccines. I’m sure there will be annual injections vaccines jabs for COVID going forward in the future, but we are getting into a better position All the time, but we can’t let our guard down. I would ask everyone to still save you if you’re feeling unwell with all the signs, ring 111? And have you have yourself tested? But yeah, we will be learning to live with it and mitigations may well be social distancing mask wearing certain rules and regulations going forward. But I sincerely hope that we never have to lock down the entire island again.
Unknown Speaker 30:24
Thank you. And following on from Alex’s question earlier, can we be assured that fan friends and family will be able to isolate with family members and not in a separate location once the restrictions are used?
Howard Quayle 30:37
Well, that’s obviously ongoing at the moment, Simon, we’re looking into that at the moment, we’re taking advice, working on a strategy. And once we have that update, we will be able to tell you at this moment in time, my priority is to get as much if not all of the Ireland open up a week today. And then shortly after that, we’ll be able to announce what our plans are for our borders,
Unknown Speaker 31:00
presumably after the 19th. If there are no more cases, it will be eventually a full opening of
Howard Quayle 31:06
Yes, that’s my sincere hope Simon but let’s not damaged by saying too much. The opening up of hopefully a full opening up a week today, let’s not jinx it. There are still more data to come in more planning, etc. So let’s just take it one step at a time.
Unknown Speaker 31:25
Thank you.
Howard Quayle 31:26
Thank you very much, Simon. And thank you all very much for your questions. And thank you for everything that you’re doing that you’ve done to get us where we are. I’ve always said that we will only keep measures in place for as long as they are necessary. And it does feel that the situation that you have created will allow us to be more confident in our decision making on Thursday. Please continue to do the right thing. We do seem to be in the home straight now. But the last thing any of us want to do is to lose our footing with the end in sight. Please do remain vigilant. If you have any COVID like symptoms, please don’t ignore them. Self isolate right away and contact 111 for advice and to arrange a test. Please stay safe and keep your family and other loved ones safe. Thank you all very much. Bye bye