Venues visited by the four person Covid-19 Cluster (FOI)

​Request

Regarding the four people who visited the same venue on 16 or 17 September and tested positive for coronavirus:

A

How many other venues the four cases went to are being assessed? Do these other venues have the appropriate contact tracing details in place?

B

Regarding the three positive cases that travelled to Jersey (the other being a household contact of the third case), where did they travel from and what were these regions / countries categorised as on the traffic light system at the time?

C

When are / did other people at this venue / other venues these four cases visited being / get tested? How many of those tested positive?

D

Has there been on-island transmission?

E

What was the venue they went to and what other venues did they go to?

Response

A

25 other venues, including one bus, were assessed.

Contact tracing details varied between venues, but (other than the bus), contact details were able to be identified and 36 individuals were contacted by the Contact Tracing team.

B

All three had travelled from the UK; two from ‘green’ regions and one from an ‘amber’ region.

C

All direct contacts followed the current testing programme – they were swabbed as soon as possible after being contacted by the Contact Tracing Team, and again on the fifth and eighth day following contact with positive case. In addition, surveillance testing was completed on staff members from the venues.

Of a total of 57 people tested, one additional person had a positive test result.

D

There was no community transmission; the individual who tested positive was within the family / household.

E

The incident occurred several weeks ago and is now beyond the infection period for Covid-19.

We track and trace at all premises to which a positive case has visited. To identify venue names would not be appropriate as it may be prejudicial to their commercial interest and is therefore exempt under Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Article 33 has therefore been applied to this request.

Article applied

Article 33 - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Prejudice / public interest test

Article 33 (b) allows an authority to refuse a request for information where its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Whilst we accept that the public may have an interest in knowing the identity of the relevant venues, we believe that the disclosure of this information could be prejudicial to the commercial interests of the businesses concerned.