Much has been made of New Zealand’s successful response to the pandemic, raising the question of how our own small isles have fared. There are advantages and disadvantages to being an island community. Being more self-contained might theoretically help to limit the spread of infection, yet being cut off can present problems in the sourcing of medical supplies—though this does not seem to have dented island vaccination programmes. I spoke to leaders and residents of some of the UK’s islands about the advantages and disadvantages they have reckoned with over the past 12 months. We discussed platoons of motorbike volunteers delivering tests, how gossip can serve a public health purpose—and whether community spirit is stronger for those who live on an island.
The UK’s islands are an eclectic assortment of self-governing territories, crown dependencies and counties in their own right. The control islands have over their response is therefore varied. But do islands in general have an advantage in combatting Covid? Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University, tells me: “I think that being on an island affords the opportunity to isolate yourself. It's something that makes it feasible to keep the infection out.” But unsurprisingly, it’s “not sustainable” to rely on that indefinitely.
The Isle of Wight, off the Hampshire coast, is a UK county and therefore obliged to follow UK government policy. The island’s MP, Bob Seely, believes the government has acted “quickly,” but would have preferred a stronger form of monitoring rather than a full lockdown approach.
It is no wonder, then, that Seely accepted trialling the government’s own track-and-trace app in May 2020. However, it soon came to light that the app did not work reliably on iPhones, only on Android. The trial did not provide sufficient results to roll the app out nationally, and the government pivoted to tried-and-tested technology.
In contrast, the Bailiwick of Jersey is a self-governing dependency of the UK, and therefore had a strategy theoretically independent of the UK government, led by Chief Medical Officer Susan Turnbull and her deputy Ivan Muscat, who took the lead while his boss was on sick leave in the early stages.
Jersey’s strategy has been to suppress, contain and shield, not dissimilar to the UK’s. Both sought to “flatten the curve” rather than pursue complete exclusion. A Jersey strategy document from November stated that “locking down normal life, the economy and travel will be the last resort.” A spokesperson for the Jersey government told me: “the overall strategy is the same: we are not doing elimination, we are pursuing suppress, contain and shield.”
Still, “our situation is different because we are an island and we can control [how] everyone who comes to Jersey has to isolate for 10 days, regardless of where they arrive from.” Jersey has had a blanket self-isolation policy for new arrivals since just before Christmas; the UK was operating “travel corridors,” which exempted arrivals from quarantine, until mid-late January. Jersey is now ahead of the wider UK in beginning to lift some of its restrictions, with food and drink venues opening in late February and limited outdoor gatherings now permitted—with masks strongly recommended.
Some Channel Islands, such as those comprising the Bailiwick of Guernsey—also a self-governing dependency of the UK—followed an even more rigorous exclusion strategy and had fewer cases, with only 14 deaths in a population of 63,000. Guernsey’s travel policy has been a blanket 21-day quarantine, unless a negative test is produced on days one and 13. Sark, a sub-jurisdiction of the Bailiwick, has had no known cases since the pandemic began and all restrictions except self-isolation for arrivals were lifted on 4th March. Owing to its small population, Guernsey may have had an edge in the race to vaccinate: the territory has currently vaccinated 47 per 100 of population, ahead of 39 in the UK and 38 in Jersey.
While a tougher policy on movement may contribute to lower case numbers, it raises issues of its own. Gupta is unequivocal that the closing of borders to control the virus means “any kind of communitarian sentiment is thrown out the window.”
Ian Blackford, an SNP MP whose constituency includes the Isle of Skye and is currently in full lockdown with the rest of Scotland, acknowledges that islands can face added disadvantages, pointing to Skye’s reliance on tourism. On top of this, although many firms have been struggling, there is also considerable anxiety about visitors returning. Some businesses, such as hotels in Waternish, have decided not to open at all until the island is completely safe.
Skye has kept up with the pace of the vaccination rollout in the rest of the UK. However, medical professionals have acknowledged logistical challenges in getting vaccines to the four smaller islands of Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna, as this journey must be done via boat and can be affected by frequent storms. Owing to this, all over 50s were vaccinated in one sitting. Both the Isle of Sheppey and the Isle of Wight have also kept pace with the UK’s wider vaccination programme.
Some of the UK’s most isolated communities can be found in the Outer Hebrides, containing 15 inhabited islands with a combined population of around 27,000. Angus MacNeil, another SNP MP, resides in Barra. On the whole, MacNeil has found Holyrood’s policies to be effective, but says “the biggest frustration is the number of oil workers and mariners having to go off the islands to get tests on the mainland,” where Covid rates have been higher. A spokesperson from NHS Western Isles confirmed to me that such workers are not specifically part of its testing strategy.
Despite their rural isolation, the Western Isles are now steaming ahead with vaccinations and offering all those over 45 the chance to book their appointment, as well as unpaid carers and anyone at risk over the age of 16.
Are islands at an advantage in the age of Covid? Gordon Henderson, Conservative MP for the Isle of Sheppey, off the Kent coast, says that blanket restrictions can be unhelpful when dealing with such unique places as islands, “which is why I favoured the tier system of restrictions.” Beyond the specifics, however, he believes the overall challenge is the same, since “there are the same problems containing the spread of the virus [as] in any other community.”
Seely has a different view, arguing that community bond has helped in restricting the virus on the Isle of Wight. “We’re 140,000 people, but we have a very high level of social cohesion. There's clearly an identity around being an island.”
Andrew Williams, Senior Lecturer in Public Health at St Andrews University, tells me that an important aspect in combatting a pandemic is “trust both in the community and those involved in governing that community.” He points to recent research from Belong, a body which seeks to encourage social unity and integration, which “has shown that trust has remained higher during the pandemic in communities with higher levels of social cohesion.” He adds that “the smaller communities on the islands may have meant there were higher levels of trust in how each [person] would respond to the regulations and news of positive cases.”
Blackford agrees, stressing that there has also been an outstanding community response on Skye, particularly in caring for the sick and vulnerable. He was particularly moved when, after residents struggled to get Covid tests to the laboratories and the results back quickly, a local motorbike group agreed to implement a system whereby they took the samples to hospital every day.
Small islands are often depicted as gossipy places, but in the Hebrides this turned out to be not just true, but life-saving. When Barra had an outbreak, “everybody told everybody else whether they were positive or negative. Within about half an hour everybody knew,” recalls MacNeil. He was then able to get in touch with the doctors directly and tell them how many positive cases there were that day. “The island telegraph was faster than the NHS official channels,” MacNeil says proudly. Of course informal channels, however helpful, are no substitute for proper health infrastructure.
The governance of the UK’s islands is varied, as have been their Covid strategies. They can serve as interesting case studies in different approaches and also provide an opportunity to experiment: the Isle of Wight is currently piloting the use of drones to deliver supplies to hospitals. A common denominator seems to be a tangible sense of community spirit that in more than one case has made residents safer. As we move through the next stages of mass vaccinations and a gradual unlocking, it’s worth keeping an eye on how the UK’s islands fare.
