To receive an update from the Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Strategy Officer.
Minutes:
Members of the Board were advised the update would reflect from the point national restrictions were introduced on 5 November 2020. The council continued to use a full range of channels to share information, including a forward programme of radio sessions with the Leader and other health professionals and colleagues.
In terms of activity directly related to Covid-19 there had been a variety of announcements around support for vulnerable islanders. Other activities covered included:
• Remembrance Sunday and other activities.
• Launch of covid support officers.
• Launch of business support grant information.
This was in addition to the general communications messages of “keeping the Island safe” and raising awareness of national restrictions.
Further work was being done to look at how to include “lived experiences” – asking people to give their story as to how Covid had impacted them, to highlight guidelines It was noted the focus for the upcoming week would be:
• Continuing information for clinically vulnerable and support available to them.
• National safeguarding adult’s week from 16 November.
• Planning for Christmas campaigns from end of lockdown.
• Continuing to work on the self-isolation tool kit and what people can do in their own homes.
• Hands face space, testing ongoing programme of work.
The following week would see a resident mailing complete, which would be a letter from the Leader and Integrated Care Partnership including general messaging about to how to keep safe and healthy over the winter.
The ACX reported that currently there were a range of contact points where residents could provide feedback to the council, but some work was required to bring it all together. This, with other softer intelligence would inform future media strategies.
Looking further ahead there would be a need to have media plans in place for the return of university students over Christmas, and for vaccinations and testing. Jonathan Van Tam had made it very clear that we were still dealing with wave two and whilst vaccination and testing were coming forward, they were not solutions to wave two – individually people still needed to do as much as they could to keep themselves and our community safe.
It was made clear the strong media message was that if residents want to be in a low tier and resume the freedoms it brings, then we all need to continue the good work the community was doing and think carefully about how we are mixing with friends and colleagues to reduce the community spread of infection.
There was a discussion about ferry operators and the ACX confirmed that the ferry operators had made their own business decisions but that we had been engaged with them, to understand their response to the recent national lockdown. They were also working with health, police and fire to understand staff, patient and goods and services movements in order to put a case to DfT that the services were critical to the Island and to secure if necessary, DfT intervention to keep services provided.
The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Covid-19 Recovery raised questions regarding additional government discretionary funding, particularly with regards to what level of funding the Island had received, and if guidance had been issued. The Deputy Leader requested an update on the amount of money given out in grant aid during the second containment phase.
It was noted the next scheduled meeting on 10 December 2020 would be after the current proposed lockdown, and it would be possible to re-assess the Islands situation at that point. It was also likely we would have data on how the national lockdown had impacted Island statistics.
The CX explained the important message to share with the community there was no pattern to where the infection was and how it was spreading. The only link was household transmissions. Hands-Face-Space remained really important, but not mixing in households was also key.
In closing, the Leader expressed his thanks for the continued good work on behalf of the Island.