13 April 2021

Chief Medical Officer issues advice on dangerous sports and high-risk activities

The Chief Medical Officer is asking people to consider avoiding dangerous sports or high-risk activities due to the current lack of medevac services.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr Beccy Edwards, said: “In the past few weeks we have asked the public to consider taking extra care in their daily lives due to difficulties arranging medevac services between the Falkland Islands and either Chile or Uruguay. This is due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that is continuing to cause problems across all of South America.

“For this reason, I would like to ask people to refrain from undertaking any high-risk activities, including dangerous sport. This is not a directive from government, but a request from me as the Chief Medical Officer. I want to be very clear about our reduced critical healthcare capacity at the current time and would ask people to exercise further caution in order to avoid the potential for serious injury. We hope that the situation will improve once Chile reopens its borders, but that will not be until the end of this month at the earliest. In the meantime, thank you for your cooperation.”