The Isle of Wight's pre-Christmas Tier 1 coronavirus restrictions caused a major spike in infections on the Island.
A lack of enforced social distancing led to the spike in cases on the Island in December and January, according to the Island’s Public Health Chief.
Asked if we would ever understand how the Island had such an extremely rapid rise in infections, Director of Public Health for the Island, Simon Bryant said it was not about a particular community, but about social distancing not being strongly enforced - which was in line with the national Government guidance.
Following the second national lockdown in November, the Isle of Wight fell into the Tier 1 category — one of only three areas to do so — which gave some of the most relaxed guidelines.
With low coronavirus rates, people could eat at restaurants, groups of six could meet and weddings could have up to 15 guests.
At the time, public figures including the Island’s MP, council leader and health officials urged people to remain cautious and follow guidelines so cases remained low.
COVID testing centre, Newport
However, from mid-December the more transmissible Kent COVID variant in Kent spread rapidly through the community - with the Island only now starting to see a tail-off in cases.
At one stage in January, hundreds of new cases were being recorded each day and more cases were found in January than in the entirety of 2020.
At a meeting of the Isle of Wight Council’s policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care, Cllr Andrew Garratt asked Mr Bryant whether we would be able to understand just how it spread so much more on the Island than in other regions of the country, not just for answers now but for any future pandemic planning.
Mr Bryant said it was down to a number of factors but confirmed the large spread was absolutely connected to the Kent variant and social distancing was not as strong.
One of the challenges the Island faced, Mr Bryant said, was in areas where there were fewer infections, so people were able to catch it as there was less community immunity.
He said:
“It is not about a particular community; it was about social distancing and that not being strongly enforced, in line with the national Government.
“That enabled spread through our community fairly quickly and it is household spread that does it as we know indoors spread much greater than outdoor.”
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