Here’s the full text of the Minister for Public Health’s opening statement at this afternoon’s COVID-19 press briefing:

Good afternoon from No 6 Convent Place.  I am here today with my friend and colleague Samantha Sacramento, Minister for Civil Contingencies who has been working constantly and tirelessly in leading the operational side of the emergency and to whom we must all be grateful. 

This is an important week in the calendar for those of the Jewish and Christian faiths and I trust that those of you of these faiths will have been able to spend some time in the traditional ways in spite of our not being able to attend our places of worship. 

For Christians like myself this is Good Friday, a day of deep contemplation and prayer. So relevant at this time. 

Today I’d like to thank the small but very effective team at Public Health Gibraltar for all that they are doing.  They are the backbone for example, of the generation of information, both publicly and within the system, such as in the 111 phone lines.  They continue to produce excellent awareness material, some recent work ably assisted by a number of teachers.  Thank you to them too.  They have together just produced some excellent material which will soon be released on CVOVID 19 and smoking.  While on the subject, and as Dr Rawal stressed two days ago, smokers are much more likely to suffer complications from COVIUD 19 than none-smokers, so do your very best to quit now.

I’m going to go straight in to the situation at St Bernard’s Hospital:

A&E stats. 

In total there were 32 attendances in the 24 hours to 8.30 this morning. Of these there were 6 with COVID symptoms, 5 in the day and 1 in the night. 2 were swabbed and all sent home.  There were no admissions for COVID related symptoms.

Bed situation 

As of this morning there were 4 COVID patients in St Bernard’s, 3 in John Ward and 1 in ITU. 

And now for the latest test results. 

I can confirm that tests are now being done locally.  All the reagents are now in the GHA lab and the lab staff are fully trained up, and carrying out the tests successfully here in Gibraltar, although we continue to have access to the testing laboratories in Spain and UK.

COVID-19 Normal Test Stats

Total swabs (excluding random): 1143 

Results pending: 47

Results received: 1096

Confirmed cases: 117 

Active cases: 49 

Recovered cases: 68

Random Sampling

Random swabs taken: 400 

Confirmed Cases: 10 

Active cases: 9 

Recovered cases: 1

Grand Totals (normal and random)

Total swabs: 1543 

Pending: 51

Results Received: 1492 

Confirmed: 127 

Active: 58

Recovered: 69

Most of the results of the 400 random samples are now in.  You will recall that these samples were taken to give us a snapshot of what the prevalence of the virus is in the community - or more precisely, was at the time the samples were taken about a week ago.  It’s something like an opinion poll of course, so it is only an indication of the real picture, but a useful one nonetheless.  

There have been 10 positives out of a sample of 400 (396 results back), which corresponds to 2.5% of the population, which would indicate that there are around 800 people who would be positive for COVID-19 at that time. 

Of these, 117 have been detected from the 111 calls and from people who have presented; that’s 14.5% of the number we suspect are in the community. This could indicate as expected that there’s a considerable number of symptom-free carriers.  Indeed 6 of the 10 positives in the random samples did not have symptoms.  

We must expect that at least a proportion of these will develop symptoms in the next 7 to 10 days and will either call 111 or will present at the hospital if symptoms are more acute.  

Public Health advice remains that we will see a surge in hospitalisation, probably next week, as those affected in the community develop symptoms. The potential remains that the hospital could fill up in just a few days, as has been seen in most other countries.  We are fortunately ready for this.

On a more positive note, the statistical teams from the GHA, Museum, Botanic Gardens and the University have analysed the data by age, separating the over-70s from the under 70s. Results show that of those tested at the time of the analysis, 17% of the under 70s were positive but only 5.5% of the over 70s were.  This is a statistically significant result, showing that our strategy of locking down the over 70s early has worked and that for the very large part, they are protecting themselves.  

I am pleased to report too that the incidence of new positives detected continues to decrease - that is, the rate of increase in positives has decreased, with, as I said last time I appeared, the difference having been noticeable since lockdown.  

Indeed the number of positives as a percentage of those tested peaked between the 26th and 28th March and has been dropping steadily since. 

Good news of course is that at the moment the number of recovered cases exceeds the active cases. 

One analysis suggests that whereas we have had 127 positives at this stage, without the measures we have taken we could have had closer to 1800, that is we have over 1600 fewer positives than one of the models predicts.

Once again this shows the effectiveness of our measures - and the importance of everyone keeping to the rules.  If we stop applying the restrictions now we will get a surge in cases.

We are of course actively considering when and how the measures can be relaxed.  It’s a complex challenge facing authorities around the world.  

I am confident that as we monitor the development of the disease in Gibraltar, as we have up to now, we will be able to release in a responsible and measured way, to ensure our health service is not overwhelmed so that we can return to normality as soon as possible.  But it can’t be just yet.  There is still prevalence in the countries around us, and the majority in the community are not yet immune.  We will have to wait and see so that we strike the right balance.

Talking of data, the Environmental Agency has continued to monitor air quality during this time.  While the less-accurate passive monitoring system has been affected by the unavailability of diffusion tubes from the UK due to the lockdown there, the more accurate air quality monitoring stations have been recording air quality, and the data are being analysed regularly by the UK specialists Ricardo’s. The analyses up to the 4th April - they will be updated every two weeks - show a decrease in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide, other oxides of nitrogen, PM10 and PM2.5 throughout Gibraltar since lockdown. 

We will be publishing a number of graphs to show this in the coming days.

This is without doubt due to the decrease in traffic and proves once again that the biggest source of air pollution through most of Gibraltar is traffic.  A reduction in traffic has real positive effects on air quality.  We must remember that in the future.

Interestingly too, the Gibraltar Electricity Authority reports that power consumption in Gibraltar has dropped by about 10% overall, from a peak demand of 34MW to 30MW, with the highest demand daily being around 8pm - dinner time.

It is very easy at this time of global pandemic to forget the environment and the danger of climate change - though many of us will long to be able to go out and spend some time in contact with nature after so many weeks indoors.  The global pandemic has shown us how we can be forced to change our way of life.  I hope that the world is learning lessons from the current crisis.

Before I pass over to the Minister for Civil Contingencies, let me remind everyone.  It looks like our measures have slowed down the arrival of the worst effect of coronavirus to Gibraltar.  But look at the figures around the world of tens of thousands of deaths.  We are not on a different planet. The danger remains. We still expect numbers to climb and friends and relatives of ours to die.  It is vitally important that we continue to abide by Public Health advice.  A walk is not a picnic.  Keep to the rules so that we don’t have to make them stricter.

Stay at home.  Don’t be tempted to go out and socialise.  Keep your distances.  Don’t visit over-70 year olds.  We have seen that we ARE protecting them.  That we ARE saving lives.  Let us keep doing just that.