A month with no new cases of Covid-19 among Gibraltar's local population

It is now a month since there have been any cases of Covid-19 at all detected among Gibraltar's resident population. The government issues statistics every day and the last time any cases were reported among local people was 6 April.

There have been a few cases among visitors to the Rock and these people are immediately put into isolation.

The figures for Wednesday this week show that there have been 4,286 cases of the virus detected since the beginning of the pandemic, and 4,189 recoveries. There are currently three visitors who have tested positive for Covid-19 and 27 people are in self-isolation, although this figure includes those who have been in contact with positive cases or who are vulnerable and shielding for health reasons.

This successful record is strongly believed to be due to the fact that the vast majority of Gibraltar's population and most of its nearly 15,000 cross-frontier workers have had at least one dose of the vaccine. This is very encouraging news as it indicates that the vaccine not only provides high immunity but may also prevent or reduce transmission.

Many of the pandemic restrictions have now been lifted in Gibraltar and the atmosphere is one of near-normality. The government is keen to attract tourism this summer, especially from the UK, but this does not mean that the authorities have relaxed and dropped their guard over the possibility of new infections brought in by visitors. Controls will still be in place, but Gibraltar in general is hoping for a good summer season.