A number of letters have suggested the Island’s increased infection rate was due to mainlanders’ visits, whether tourists or second home owners.

Travellers from the mainland may well have had some effect but the cause, partly at least, will be found closer to home.

As a mainlander working in Portsmouth for over 20 years I am very aware of the large number of Islanders who commute daily to Portsmouth and Southampton for work.

While there, they naturally encounter their work colleagues, shopkeepers, transport workers and members of the public generally.

Each evening they will return home and, quite reasonably, mix with their family, friends, neighbours and members of the local community.

I don’t need to spell out the scope for transmission.

I am certainly not seeking to lay blame on Islanders who have to travel to find employment, but I do think it is unreasonable to assume that one body of people, moving in one direction, can be solely responsible for the alarming increase in the Island’s infection rate.

A more likely reason for the Island’s current situation is the vastly increased rate of transmission of the latest mutation of the virus.

No matter how or where contact was made, the spread is accelerating everywhere and the Island is no exception.

The answer now is for people to work together, comply strictly with the restrictions and take up the offer of vaccination when it comes.

Having a barrier at the Island’s border is neither realistic nor achievable. Statements verging on the xenophobic won’t help at all.

Having visited the Island regularly for the past 35 years, I look forward to returning to your wonderful world just as soon as conditions allow.

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