Virus spread ‘hampered’ by working from home

People should be allowed to continue to work from home rather than being forced back into offices, a scientist advising the Government has said.

Prof Stephen Reicher – a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours, which feeds into the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – said the number of contacts people had each week had risen to the highest number for a year, mostly down to people having to go into work.

Experts say high levels of homeworking played a key role in preventing sustained epidemic growth in recent months.

But they say it was “highly likely” that a significant decrease in homeworking in the next few months would result in a rapid increase in hospital admissions with Covid.

Prof Reicher said: “In the last couple of weeks, people have started mixing more.

"The rate at which we mix, the number of contacts we have per week, has gone up but when you look more closely, what you find is nearly all of that is due to people mixing at work – a 63% increase.

"So the problem isn't that people are choosing to party all the time, the problem is people are given no choice because they are required to go back to work."

He added: "That's why it would make sense for people to work at home if they can.”

Prof Reicher said it was important for measures to be brought in earlier rather than later.

He said the Government was saying it would "wait" and "watch" – but this would lead to more needing to be done later.