PHR (Amendment) (no.22)  came into operation at 00.01 on 22 January 2022, although I did not find it publicly available until the morning of the 24^th.

The age at which a child travelling with a person covered by the vaccination exemption is required to test in order to leave isolation early is changed from 12 years to 12 years and three months (amended reg.5B).

Reg 6A is revoked. This formerly required wearing of face coverings on vehicles “used to provide a public transport service”. These amending Regulations do not, however, amend Reg 6B, introduced at the same time as Reg 6A, and used to require face coverings in public health settings through a GC (GC 2021/0094). Removing the PHR requirement to wear face coverings in these settings was announced as coming into effect at 00:01 on the 22^nd of January.

A GC has legal effect, so if its provisions are no longer desired, the approach throughout the pandemic has been to repeal them, if they did not contain a built in time limit. A recent example is the GC giving CoMin the power to define countries in different categories (GC 2021/0089) which revoked an early GC setting out a change of category for France (GC 2021/0086).

The face coverings in public health settings GC did not contain a sunset clause, but was revoked by GC 2022/0013, which was not available on the Tynwald website as of noon on the 25^th of January, but which can be found here. The text of GC 2022/0013, as of noon on the 25^th, was not findable by google search, or linked from covid19.gov.im or (according to OpenLinkProfiler) linked to from any webpage anywhere else. As I’ve said before, making legally binding documents available to the public before they come into effect is profoundly important.  More than three days passing before a member of the public can find the law does not reflect this.

Two PHRs covered in this blog.

PHR (Amendment) (no.20) was created on 21 December 2021, and came into effect at 00:01 on 22 December.

The most important substantive change was in relation to persons self-isolating due to a positive test. The default isolation period for Category B persons was changed from 21 days to 10 days (amended reg.5).

The PHR were amended to allow a person who had registered a positive test to be released early (i.e. before the expiry of the normal period of isolation) following registration of two negative home tests separated by at least 24 hours. There is a duty on category B persons who have tested positive through a self-administered test to notify the Director of Public Health (amended reg.14(3)).

Schedule 2 was revoked. This schedule formerly provided, in tabular form, a range of rules for different categories of person in relation to self-isolation. As restrictions have been substantially reduced, this is no longer necessary.

Finally, the PHR now incorporates a number of conditions of self-isolation which were incorporated into individual, standardised, direction notices issued to individuals (see new reg.14A). This is consistent with a general tendency of the new administration to move coronavirus restrictions and rules further up the legal chain in terms of formality and scrutiny – something to be applauded.

PHR Amendment (no.21) was created on the 10^th of January (or Janaury as the text states), and came into effect at 4am on the 11^th. Under this regulation, any person entering the Isle of Man who has not travelled outside the Common Travel area, or a fully vaccinated person who has travelled outside the Common Travel Area but not in a Category 3 country, is no longer required to self-isolate; or to undergo a PCR test within 48 hours of arrival, and self-isolate pending the results. Instead they are required to self-administer a lateral flow test as soon as possible after arrival, and are obliged to report a positive test, becoming a category B person (see the amended reg.11B in particular).