Very few cases would likely have been prevented if the island had gone into the third lockdown 24 hours earlier, a government Minister had insisted.

Education Minister Dr Alex Allinson was one of six witnesses giving evidence to Tynwald’s social affairs policy review committee which is focusing on the decisions that led up to the circuit breaker that ended yesterday (Monday) after nearly seven weeks.

It was announced on the morning of Tuesday, March 2 that the island was to go into lockdown at one minute past midnight on the Tuesday/Wednesday.

Year 8 at Bemahague were told to self-isolate with their families but all other children could go to school as normal on the Tuesday.

’We had a seven week lockdown because of the decisions taken that weekend,’ said committee chairman Julie Edge.

Dr Allinson replied: ’You’re assuming that if we had locked down 24 hours earlier we would have prevented an outbreak. What we were dealing with was possibly widespread community spread here but it was under the radar and it only became obvious during that week when we had already locked down the Isle of Man and closed all the schools.

’When you look at the trajectory of the curves we locked down at a very, very early level before cases had kicked off.

’How many cases could have been prevented if we had locked down 24 hours earlier?

’That’s almost impossible to answer but the rational answer would probably be very few.

’Because of the incubation period those cases were already occurring.

’Now if you should like to ask should we have locked down a week earlier, or two weeks earlier or when one member of the Steam Packet Company who lived in the island who got the virus, again we are talking about a proportionate response to an undetermined threat.’

He said each outbreak had been different.

Dr Allinson said the impact of closing schools and the knock on effects it has for mental health, society and the economy is ’major’ and should always be a last resort.

’Nobody closes down our education system without a decent reason and a decent risk assessment,’ he said, pointing out that this had been one case with one pupil in one school.

Dr Allinson said if we had exactly the same circumstances he would do the same again.

He said: ’This was an announcement based in risk assessment. The contact tracing team had looked at that school, at possible contacts and as a precaution decided to ask the entire year group to self-isolate with their families.

’We have to remember the amount of people who were self-isolating only a month ago and the amount of disruption that caused to them as we tired to get this outbreak under control.

’At one minute past midnight that evening (Tuesday/Wednesday) the country unfortunately went into another lockdown. What we were dealing with on that Monday night was the first positive case of a pupil who had been within a school building the previous week. That obviously escalated our concerns.’

But he said it only became apparent that this was an outbreak after the schools had been shut down.

The decision to isolate the year group but keep that school open otherwise was made by CoMin on the advice from public health directorate and the contact tracing team, he said, as a ’proportionate way of trying to keep as many children as safe as possible without disadvantaging those who still could go school if they wanted to’.

He said a clear message went out on the Tuesday morning that attendance wasn’t compulsory.

We cannot constantly close down the island anymore for one positive case, he said, adding that the occurrence of a positive case ’isn’t a failure, it’s a reality’.