We had 230 new cases on the island yesterday, almost double the previous record and taking us to 1,350 active cases. The population is 90,000. Scale our case rate up to what that would translate to in the UK, it would be about 160,000 cases in one day and 900,000 active cases. What's even more hilarious is that I know of loads of people who definitely have it and can't get tested so goodness knows what the true number of cases is.. Thankfully we only have a handful of people in the one hospital we have but we'll find out in the next week or two whether the vaccine wall holds as most of those positive tests have come in the last 7-10 days.
It's running wild over here, the contact tracing team are so overwhelmed that in many cases they're telling people who test positive to tell their own close contacts to look out for symptoms and get a pack of 7 lateral flow tests to carry out home testing. There is no longer a requirement for close contacts to isolate, instead they can home test for those 7 days. The border controls have been completely scrapped, anyone who has had both jabs can return without any test or isolation. There is no guidance on mask wearing or ventilation and a small number of people are taking it upon themselves to wear them but we're starting to see businesses close down because all of their staff have Covid. Probably about 2-3% of the population currently have it.
A wave like this probably would have killed hundreds of people pre-vaccine, and it won't this time, which is obviously great, but I still have questions about how wise it is to let a virus that causes serious illness and long term complications for some to tear through the population unchecked, and also having mass isolation going on. We have the same problem as the UK where people think the vaccine is some sort of off switch for the pandemic, in fact I think it's even worse over here. Our government have been very careful throughout but they seem to look at what England are doing now and use it as an excuse to be lazy and not bother retaining any sense of caution or mitigation.
People keep denying the herd immunity thing. The fact is, if the vaccine doesn't stop you getting infected then the only way this ends is by letting everyone catch it with the defence of the vaccine on their side. It has a lot of risks but the reinfection rate is low and it seems to be the case that having had Covid is the only way to truly prevent getting it in future. I don't know if the approach of some countries of trying to come out of lockdowns with a high vaccination rate AND a low case rate is a viable approach or whether it just prolongs the inevitable and they end up having a last big wave as well, but time will tell.