It was unfair and wrong for the government to blame the Steam Packet for not isolating between shifts during the pandemic.
That’s according to Kate Brunner’s Covid Review, which was published this week.
A Covid outbreak in February 2021, which was traced back to a Steam Packet crew member, leading to the third lockdown starting March 3, 2021.
Self-isolation rules were introduced for inbound travel to the island on March 16 2020, but it wasn’t until March 23, 2020, that government issued Steam Packet workers with exemption certificates, as they wouldn’t be able to work if they had to isolate for 14 days every time they entered the island.
It was February 10, 2021 when a UK resident Steam Packet worker tested positive for Covid, with a Manx resident Steam Packet worker testing positive for the virus the next week on February 17, 2021.
At a public press conference on February 18, then Chief Minister, Howard Quayle, stated that the outbreak had started with a Steam Packet crew member.
The following day (February 19), he suggested that all Steam Packet crew should have been following a modified self-isolation, which allowed them to travel to their accommodation from their place of work, but not anywhere else.
The Steam Packet had the view that its non-Manx staff had to follow modified self-isolation, but its Manx-resident staff did not.
A subsequent independent review on the matter, ordered by Mr Quayle, found that there was never any requirements for Manx staff to self-isolate, owing to deficiencies in the drafting of exemption documentation.
This was due to the drafting of the Entry Certificates and the lack of Direction Notices.
The Public Accounts Committee, a scrutiny committee within Tynwald, looked into the outbreak and concluded that there was inadequate consideration within government on arrangements for Manx staff, as well as inadequate communication between different government departments and the Steam Packet.
Brunner’s review found Manx-resident Steam Packet crew were not told that they should isolate between shifts.
The review says: ‘What is remarkable is that this difference in understanding was allowed to persist from the lifting of restrictions in May 2020 until the start of the outbreak in mid-February 2021.
For a period of nine months, Manx-resident crew were mixing freely in the community while Ministers believed they were self-isolating.’
It also found that members of government and members of Steam Packet had various communications that would, if properly considered, have exposed their different assumptions.