UKHospitality Welcomes Changes to NHS Covid-19 App

An update to the NHS Covid-19 app has been welcomed by UKHospitality.

The body had argued staff shortages have been negatively impacting the sector as it struggles back from the pandemic.

“With our research showing more than 250,000 hospitality workers being affected by ‘pings’ at any given point by the NHS Covid-19 app, this intervention from government is necessary to prevent a complete loss of summer trading for the hospitality sector following prolonged periods of severely disrupted trading,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality.

While the government still urges the public to use the app, changes made this week will result in fewer contacts being advised to self-isolate following close contact with a positive case.

As part of a review into the app announced by the health secretary, the ‘logic’ which underpins how close contacts are notified will be updated.

Currently, the app looks for close contacts five days before a positive test for people who input a positive test but are asymptomatic. Based on public health advice, this will be updated to look back at contacts two days before a positive test.

The change will mean fewer contacts that took place when the positive case was unlikely to be at the peak of their infectiousness are advised to self-isolate, reducing the overall number of notifications sent by the app.

This update does not impact the sensitivity of the app, or change the risk threshold, and will result in the same number of high-risk contacts being advised to self-isolate, the government said.

Health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “We want to reduce the disruption that self-isolation can cause for people and businesses while ensuring we’re protecting those most at risk from this virus.

“This update to the app will help ensure that we are striking the right balance.

A survey of hundreds of hospitality businesses by industry body UKHospitality revealed the extent of the chaos and damage done to the industry by the so-called ‘pingdemic’.

The results suggest that six in ten hospitality businesses have had staff off work after being ‘pinged’ and that 267,000 people or 13 per cent of the industry’s workforce have recently been, or are currently, self-isolating.

“This will help to alleviate some of the pressure currently being experienced by hard-hit businesses, but is not a silver bullet,” added Nicholls.

“The fact that fully vaccinated staff will still currently have to self-isolate is a significant barrier to venues operating viably and moving towards recovery.

“We urge the government to update guidance and bring forward a workable test to release scheme at the soonest possible opportunity.”

UKHospitality is calling for immediate action from the government to help these hard-pressed businesses, and particularly in the light of the fact that new industry data reveals the sector has suffered more than a £100 billion drop in sales from pre-pandemic levels since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: Breakingtravelnews

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