Data released in the Budget last week has revealed how the island dealt with the challenges by coronavirus over the last 12 months.

The island’s Covid Response Team mans the Covid 111 service, and is responsible for providing an accessible booking service for Covid-19 testing, vaccinations and the management of positive cases from initial notification, service of statutory documents through to contact tracing via an online and telephone based service.

According to the data released, in 2021-22 the team oversaw:

⢠The management of 8,700 positive cases;

⢠The identification and provision of appropriate advice and guidance of 16,000 close contacts;

⢠Administering the booking of circa. 95,000 vaccinations as part of the vaccination programme;

⢠The booking of 82,000 Covid-19 related tests;

⢠Handling of 31,000 calls from members of the public;

⢠The successful amalgamation of the Travel Notification Service with Passports and Immigration;

⢠The transition from a clinical led service to one that is primarily an online based self-service;

⢠The semi-automation of the results service to the public;

⢠The piloting of an online publicly accessible contact tracing function.

The service will transition over to be under the control of Manx Care this year, but it has said it will continue to provide an accessible service for the public as long as required for testing and vaccination purposes and the contact tracing function will shift to an as needed, business as usual service.

Meanwhile, the Isle of Man Borders team brought together the Passport, Immigration and Nationality Services team and the Travel Notification Service team (which was established in response to the Covid-19 pandemic).

As a result, over 140,000 people successfully arrived to the island from July to October.

This number is expected to rise exponentially this year, as from March 31, there will be no isolation or testing requirements following arrival in the island for either vaccinated or unvaccinated people.

There also will be no public health checks on arrival.

Travel declarations will continue to be required by all travelling here ’for an appropriate period’, with checks on these to be ’completed on an ad-hoc basis for compliance purposes’.