'Covid was truly alarming - we were frightened'

As Jersey's health minister in 2020, Deputy Richard Renouf was responsible for deciding what restrictions would be imposed on islanders to help slow the spread of Covid.

Reflecting on five years since lockdown was announced, the former minister said he had a deeply personal understanding of the implications.

"My late wife was a resident of a care home," he said.

"She was vulnerable to Covid and, just before the lockdown, I remember going up to see her and realising that might be the last time I would see her. That really brought home to me what we might be facing."

The former health minister said it was a daunting situation.

"We were very frightened at what we saw coming towards us," he said.

"We were being advised that we would see hundreds of deaths, quite probably. It was truly alarming.

"We knew we had to try and do something to protect people but we didn't know, we couldn't know, what we were facing."

Becky Sherrington, who was head of head of the vaccination centre, said the anniversary "feels quite surreal".

"We went through so much. So much anxiety was present, so much uncertainty," she said.

"So much hard work went on across the island, and now we're through all of that."

Ms Sherrington said inoculating islanders against the disease was a "huge collective effort" and at the start "no-one actually believed there would be a vaccine".

She said: "The first part was actually convincing people that we need to be ready for a vaccination rollout and this was going to be really big.

"It wasn't clear to be able to really fully grasp that it would end. It just felt like we're getting though each day.

"We had waves of Covid, where large numbers of staff were off sick, or they were coping with their families being off sick, or they were dealing with the emotional impact of being in the middle of a pandemic as well."

She said the day they decided to start vaccinating islanders was a powerful memory.

"Turning up the nursing homes and seeing the residents of those care homes lined up... it was really, really emotional and seeing that care home manager standing at the front door waiting for us," she said.

"I'll never forget that."

Covid presented an unprecedented challenge for businesses.

Simon Soar, who was head of the island's hospitality association at the time, said: "Nobody had a manual for this.

"We didn't know how long [lockdown would last].

"When we first started, it was a few weeks we might be closed for."

Jersey went into lockdown on 20 March 2020 before restrictions were gradually eased about two months later.

Subsequent restrictions were brought in as the island was hit with new waves of the virus.

Mr Soar said Covid and other factors had changed hospitality in Jersey forever.

"We've had the cost of living changes as the result of [Covid] and we have also had Brexit, which has had a big impact.

"Things like staffing, the goods that we can get in, all of that has changed.

"The industry, the one thing it has shown is resilience and agility and it has shown that in a really good way."

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