Too many people were pinged and personnel was lacking. Now rules have been revisited for key sectors to allow workers to work; rather than a self-isolation period a continuous check-up with covid tests will be implemented.
Uk is currently facing a ‘pingdemic’, what’s a pingdemic? The Prime Minister recently removed all covid restrictions in England, but kept the requirement of self-isolation if you’ve been pinged. You are pinged when you come into contact with an individual which tested positive. No matter if you’re fully vaccinated, if the system notifies you a period of self-isolation is required. Let’s better see what’s a pingdemic is and what issue is creating to the industries.
Starting from the two split definitions of the two words composing pingdemic; pandemic is a disease which is prevalent over a whole world or country. On the other side ‘ping’ it refers to the sound you hear when you receive a notification. Therefore, a pingdemic is a notification system which is taking a large part of the country. But what’s annoying is that, in this case the note you’re receiving imposes you a home-stay period.
Boris Johnson thought that removing all covid restriction would have allowed certain businesses to reopen. But meanwhile, the Delta variant is spreading across Uk. Therefore they imposed a self-isolation period to whomever came into contact with a positive person. No matter if you’re fully vaccinated, perfectly feeling well and non testing positive – you’re still not allowed to go working.
It’s like a surveillance period ‘just to be sure’ you don’t get positive later on. This obviously resulted in missing of the work force in certain industries.
One of the most affected is the food industry. Food producers warned the industry is in a crisis position, therefore a compromise has been taken. Workers in key sectors will be allowed to take daily tests as an alternative to self-isolation. Nonetheless, if they test positive for COVID-19 they still require to self-isolate.