Days five and 10 Covid-19 testing (FOI)

Request

Safer Travel Policy - Day 10 test positivity rate

Recent international research has suggested the most optimum time for conducting PCR testing is Day five after any exposure. In Jersey, if arriving from some countries, you are required to isolate for 10 days and have three tests.

I would like to understand the reason for 10 days isolation when we have such an excellent testing system here. There is little benefit of wasting resources and money testing people arriving to such high standards if we do not receive any benefits from doing so (ie reduced time in isolation). I would like to understand the Day 10 vs Day five positivity rate around the safer travel policy since the changes to introduce Day 10 and Day five tests.

Essentially, I would like to know this information:

• for those arriving from a Red country, how many have tested positive on Day five and how many have tested positive on Day 10 tests

• for those arriving from a Amber country, how many have tested positive on Day five and how many have tested positive on Day 10? (Caution - they could have been exposed in the community between Day five and Day 10 so this does not give a complete picture)

• for those arriving from a Green country or day trippers, how many have tested positive on Day five and how many have tested positive on Day 10? (Caution - they could have been exposed in the community between Day one and Day 10 so this does not give a complete picture)

• I would also like to understand this data for contact tracing testing, but I understand GOJ have recently stopped some of the testing on set days so this data would give an incomplete picture on the merits of Day five / Day 10 testing

Response

Following an extensive review of systems, it has been concluded that the information, as requested, is not held in recorded form. To answer the request, the data would need to be extracted from various sources and manipulated, aside from taking more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to do that work, the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data in order to provide a response. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Article applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.