Ministers stand firm on app in spite of concerns
RESTRICTIONS LIFTED, BUT SOME CAUTIOUS
THE NHS Covid-19 app will not have its sensitivity tweaked, Downing Street has confirmed, despite industries warning of staff shortages as England lifts almost all coronavirus restrictions.
Hospitality, leisure, food production and retail sectors have complained of having to close premises or cut opening hours because of the number of people being told to stay home for 10 days after being in contact with a person who has tested positive.
But the Government said it does not plan to reduce the sensitivity of the app to avoid people being “pinged”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman, asked whether the app is working as expected, meaning it does not need tweaking, told reporters: “That’s correct.”
Speaking before a No 10 briefing, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the number of workers being “pinged” by the NHS app is the “single biggest issue” being raised with him by company bosses.
He told LBC he accepts it is a “difficult situation” but said “there isn’t any movement on it”, and it will still be August 16 before there is a wider relaxation for those who have been had both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Nick Mackenzie, chief executive of hospitality chain Greene King, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that 33 of his pubs were shut last week due to workforce shortages, leading him to call for a test and release scheme for those testing negative.
PureGym boss Humphrey Cobbold told the programme that the country has become the “United Pingdom”, with one in four of his staff notified to quarantine.
Mr Johnson’s spokesman said
the Government will “constantly review” issues around critical workers and key infrastructure, after an exemption for frontline NHS and social care workers who are double vaccinated and test negative for the virus was brought in this week.
Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), stressed that if the public do not take a cautious approach to their rediscovered freedoms, the country could “move into the mid and high tens of thousands of deaths” in what he called the “biggest wave of Covid infection that we have ever seen”.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, the devolved administration has decided to drop coronavirus measures to the lowest level of its fivetier system, but face coverings in shops and public transport will remain mandatory “for some time to come”, Nicola Sturgeon confirmed.