Minister Sacramento’s Statement - Wednesday COVID-19 Briefing
Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for joining us for today’s information briefing.
I trust that you are keeping well and keeping well at home, I am pleased to be with you once again and keep you updated on the situation in relation to COVID-19 in Gibraltar.
I am pleased that through our public service broadcaster and through our Government press office, we are able to reach out to you with information every day. We continue to work on arrangements for you, every day.
I am joined today by Darren Grech, the Chief Secretary of the civil service. Darren and I have been working very closely in the past few weeks. Darren will of course now give you further details on how the civil service and public sector has immediately adapted incredibly well by stepping up to continue to provide you with the services during these difficult times.
Let me start with today’s statistics: In the last 24 hours there have been 27 attendances at Accident & Emergency at St Bernard’s Hospital. Of these, 2 presented with COVID symptoms, one was swabbed and there have been no admissions.
The latest data is as follows:
- Total number of swabs so far 2020.
- Results pending 78.
- Results received 1942.
Of the 132 confirmed cases we have in our community, 5 are active and 127 have recovered.
All 5 active cases are at home and all are well.
So, those are the latest statistics and as you can see our statistics are lowering; they are low, but that does not mean that we can become complacent.
I would like to update you on two important developments on the GHA front to ensure that we are progressing and that we are ready to deal with this.
First of all, I would like to let you know that we have an additional isolation unit at Mount Alvernia. This is a new facility which we identified on the Mount Alvernia grounds and which has been refurbished very quickly and very well, in a very short period of time. This enables us to have a further 4 isolation beds where we will be able to provide additional health care. This means that in the event that people may become COVID positive at Mount Alvernia they would not only be immediately isolated on a separate facility on the premises but medical care would be available to them on site so they would not necessarily have to be moved to St Bernard’s hospital.
In addition to that; another exercise that we have undertaken in readiness to be prepared as possible should there be a surge, has been an exercise that we took at our Nightingale facility at Europa Point hospital yesterday morning.
That facility continues to upgrade its equipment and yesterday it was tested out with 25 volunteers as fake patients.
The exercise involved nursing, porters, occupational health, physiotherapy, pharmacy, medical, fire marshals, clerical administrators, stores and communication staff.
Over the period of the exercise patient transfer simulations were successfully carried out. All patients were assessed by triage nurse and allocated to an appropriate bed on the basis of their clinical condition and oxygen requirements. Each had a nursing medical assessment.
As part of the exercise there was a debriefing involving all of the stake holders that concluded lessons learnt from a previous exercise last week and successfully implemented; improved patient flows and the safe assessment of patients.
Nightingale will continue to test and refine a system over the next coming days to ensure that GHA is fully prepared to receive any surge in COVID-19 cases.
Thankfully we have had no real patients yet and that is because we have managed to contain the virus.
We continue to be in lockdown and that is the reason why we have been able to contain this virus so successfully. It is down to your sacrifice and your commitment to stay home that has enabled this, so thank you.
On Monday the Chief Minister informed you that the lockdown measures will continue to remain in place but that we would start a process to modify them and gradually release them for more activities.
For now, our measures are working and therefore, they must continue.
The Chief Minister did also assure everyone that these lockdown regulations will not be in force for a moment longer than is necessary.
People who are over 70 are the ones who are at most risk and that is why they have been protected by the lock down regulations in the most stringent way.
As you know, we are working on arrangements, which you already heard the Deputy Chief Minister refer to yesterday as a golden hour, in relation to the lock down regulations for people who are over 70.
The type of arrangements that we are considering, but which are very much still under discussion, particularly with the Director of Public Health and with the Royal Gibraltar Police especially, will aim to keep people safe in the event that the exceptionally need to leave home.
We are considering to have an hour in the morning available for people who are over 70 to exercise safely. The aim here is to provide a balance between the need to go out and the need of course to stay home to remain safe. The balance that we are looking at is the need to go out very briefly, very momentarily for welfare benefits for a little bit of fresh air and a little bit of vitamin D.
This is not to say that we are in any way changing the lock down measures. The lock down measures will continue and it is important that they continue.
What we are looking at is providing designated areas and asking people during this hour to go an area that is closest to them. During this hour, and with the help of the Royal Gibraltar Police and other officials, we will make these spaces safe and keep them free from people who are under the age of 70. We will also make arrangements for these areas to be kept clean, sanitised and disinfected.
Our law for the lock down for over 70s has always made exceptions for people to go out; that is what an exception is, for people to go out exceptionally and this is a further slight exception to enable exercise. We are making it available, but this does not mean in any way that people have to take it up and certainly not have to take it up every day.
Our aim is to exceptionally for a particular hour provide a safe space, for those who need to do so, but our advice remains; we ask you to please stay at home. Our advice to stay home remains.
I reiterate, that this window that we will make arrangements for is:
NOT an opportunity for you to catch up with your children and grandchildren.
NOT an opportunity to catch up with people who you have not seen for a long time and socialise with them.
If you arrive at a place and see that it is full, we ask you to move on or to go back home.
We will continue to flesh out these arrangements so that we can have everything in place to be able to give effect to this intention as soon as we can. Please make no mistake this is not the same as saying as we are releasing the lockdown. Our advice has not changed.
Each time that you leave the house you are exposed to a risk, there is a risk as soon as you walk out your front door. Anytime that you touch anything outside your house whether this is a handrail or press a button or a seat somewhere you go, so the same advice continues and the best advice is to remain home.
We need to avoid the transmission of this virus, especially to all our over 70s, at all costs.
Staying at home is still the best place to be, especially if you are over 70. If you are home, and you are careful, you will not catch the virus.
We cannot guarantee that our success story so far will continue indefinitely.
This is a killer virus and anything could change at any moment.
These continue to be matters of life and death and the risk continues to be the same. Therefore, your cooperation with these lock down measures is imperative, for your safety, and that of others.
Just because we are ready to deal with a surge, does not mean that we want this surge to happen. We will give very careful consideration to starting to unlock measures as we see the virus slow down.
I would really like to express my thank you to everybody at the GHA and all our medical services, who have enabled us to be ready for a surge should the surge arrive.
I would also like to thank everyone particularly in the public sector who continue our services running as usual because we also need to make sure that the public sector is there for you.
In particular, I would once again like to thank everybody at the office of Civil Contingencies because they are there coordinating absolutely everything that is happening around Gibraltar and they are really the ones who are helping everyone keep safe.
Finally, I would like to thank you all for working so hard to ensure that we are kept safe by staying home.
On that note I would like to finalize by inviting everybody to continue to stay home, to follow our official advice and I would like to leave you now with Darren Grech the Chief Secretary.
