Exercising her powers under the Emergency Powers (Coronavirus) (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Regulations, 2020, the Medical Officer of Health has imposed a requirement on all persons arriving in the Bailiwick from anywhere in the world to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival. This is a legal requirement, and failure to comply is a criminal offence. These pages were last updated on 20 March 2020 at 10.00 hrs.
- As stated in the above image: If you have any clinical questions regarding the coronavirus please call the dedicated helpline on 01481 756938 or 01481 756969. These two numbers will be manned between 8am and 10pm every day by trained call handlers from the Joint Emergency Services Call Centre (JESCC).
- If the information provided on these pages does not answer your non-clinical questions, please email publichealth@gov.gg.
- For media enquiries, contact Press Room: pressroom@gov.gg or 01481 717022.
Testing undertaken by Public Health Services in Guernsey
On 9 March 2020, The Director of Public Health, Dr Nicola Brink, announced the first positive case of COVID-19, in the island. See media release for more details.
| Number of samples tested | Positive results | Negative results | Awaiting results |
| 273 | 1 | 156 | 116 |
Testing for COVID-19 is carried out by a UK specialist laboratory. The increase in demand on the UK laboratories has increased the time it takes to receive confirmed results from the standard 48 hours. For those individuals for whom we are awaiting the results, it is important to emphasize that they could be suffering from flu or another ailment. The delay in results is not an indication of a potential positive result.
The virus was originally referred to as 2019-nCoV novel coronavirus. On 11 February 2020 the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses designated a name to this new coronavirus-Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). On the same day, the World Health Organization named the disease that is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 as COVID-19.
