JERSEY

WILL KAYE BURTON BANK 2014-2016 ST BRELADE – JULY 2020

I really don’t think there was a better place to be for lockdown especially within the British Isles. I was still able to get out, swim and play golf with my family throughout the whole of lockdown. Although when I returned home from university in the UK, I had to have a fourteen day quarantine in my room which wasn’t fun whilst my parents and brother were living the life in the sun!

With very few cases and limited deaths on the Island the lockdown was released much earlier than in England and it was never quite as severe. On the whole I think they have dealt with it well especially now as they are on a level of lockdown which is back to life, much as normal.

They did build the Nightingale Hospital which was never occupied by a single patient which seems like a huge waste of money. Other than that I think they did well to open the borders as early as they did and have so few cases coming onto the island, especially important with such an elderly population.

I graduated during the pandemic and I have still managed to come out of University with a 2:1 in Economics with Geography. To my surprise, I also managed to secure a job in the middle of lockdown that I have just recently started in the City of London.

But the principal challenges others have struggled with I have overcome quite well. The biggest test, as many others of my age was a lack of social contact and events which I struggled with at the start. Now everything is relaxing it is much easier.

I really hope by next summer we will have a vaccine and be back to normal. Before then I’m not expecting much really but enjoying being able to work from home half of every week while still getting that human contact in the office.

I look forward to going out and having fun again. It would be appreciated not to have to stand two meters apart and be seated the whole time. Although at times I have liked the slower pace of life, I’m looking forward to it speeding up again.

Thinking back to Mill Hill, I feel that being surrounded by people of all walks of life and cultures is something I miss. Having lived in Jersey until I was sixteen, I really learnt a lot from the whole experience.