Tuesday, April 21, 2020 - 10:05

IN FULL: Chief Minister's statement at yesterday's joint press conference

NO CHANGE: LOCKDOWN STAYS LOCKED

Today your Chief Minister and your Leader of the Opposition appear together probably for the first time since the nineteen sixties.

The issues we are dealing with today relate to matters of life and death.

It is therefore right and proper that we should be standing shoulder to shoulder together on these issues.

Today, I am are here to report to you on the discussions in the meeting of Cabinet held this morning.

This meeting was attended by the Leader of the Opposition.

Before I go onto the matters that I must address you on, I want to share with you the updated statistics on the spread of the Coronavirus

COVID-19 across our community.

To date the number of tests carried out have been 1,928

36 Results Pending.

Of the 1,892 Results Received, the number of Confirmed Cases is a total of 132.

Of those, the number of recovered cases is approximately 90% or 120,

The number of active cases as at today remains 12.

Those numbers are a measure of the success we have achieved in the Government’s policy of lockdown.

I want to thank everyone in Gibraltar for observing the regulations that we have imposed during the period of social lockdown to date.

I must thank the over 70s in particular.You are the demographic most at risk. And you are the persons most severely affected by the lockdown regulations we have imposed.

You know that we are doing so for your benefit.

But I do acknowledge of course that the rules infringe your hard-earned civil liberties.

I want to therefore thank everyone who has been inconvenienced by the lock down rules we have imposed.

The overwhelming tenor of the approach of the population has been respectful and supportive and I thank each and everyone of you personally for that.

You have my assurance that we will not maintain the rules for a moment longer than is necessary.

For now the rules will remain in place, although we have started a process of modifying them in order to gradually release more activities.

I will say more of that in a moment.

I also want today to renew my thanks for the work being done by public sector at this time.

From our doctors to our refuse collectors, to our teachers to our nurses, cleaners, consultants, intensivists, our community has cause to be grateful to you.

And that gratitude will have to continue for some months to come.

LOCKDOWN CONSIDERED

Because we will have to continue to check COVID-19’s progress in coming months.

For that reason, the Cabinet met today to consider the extension of the GENERAL social lockdown, affecting all in our community.

The lockdown regulations expire this Thursday, on the 23rd April, and a decision on whether or not to renew them must be made ahead of that date.

Additionally, we also had an obligation to consider the lockdown rules applying to our over 70s, as we have committed that these would be reviewed every 7 days.

Cabinet heard this morning from all the heads of the agencies that are relevant to our decision-making in respect of the slowdown of Coronavirus.

The acting Medical Director of the Gibraltar Health Authority, Dr Krish Rawal, informed us of the continued state of readiness of the GHA.

This included a review of the Personal Protective Equipment available to all our GHA personnel - including our personnel at ERS.

We have more than enough PPE in Gibraltar and we will continue sourcing more.

Additionally, we reviewed the mechanisms being pursued at ERS by Antonio Marin and Susan Vallejo Baglietto.

This has to date been a success story for which we must thank all our GHA, ERS and Meddoc personnel.

We are similarly satisfied with the work being done in the domiciliary care sector, also where companies ADA and Rainbow continue to provide care to our elderly citizens in their homes.

They too have taken great care to follow infection control procedures to avoid transmission of the Coronavirus to our vulnerable elderly citizens.

Dr Rawal also informed us of the work being done in the Laboratory, in A&E, and continues preparations at the Nightingale Facility.

For that reason, I can today announce that we will be exercising our Nightingale facility tomorrow as from 10am. You should therefore not be alarmed if you see activity in that area of Gibraltar.

Paul Balban additionally advised that more ventilators are expected to arrive in coming days.

This will make a total of 59 ventilators available in Gibraltar.

We are all therefore satisfied that the GHA is prepared for a surge.

That surge has not yet come - but it may. And we are ready for it.

We were addressed by the Commissioner of Police on the enforcement of the lockdown regulations.The Commissioner confirmed that the general public has worked well with the Royal Gibraltar Police.