UK retail lobby: Self-isolation policy will lead to ‘critical impact’ due to ‘pingdemic’
The UK’s retail sector lobby has warned that England’s current self-isolation policy will lead to serious disruption to businesses, with millions of people set to be told to self-isolate in the coming weeks.
British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said “something’s got to give” or “we will see some more critical impacts over the coming days and weeks”.
More than 500,000 self-isolation alerts were sent out to NHS Test and Trace apps in England over the past seven days as Covid cases continued to surge – a 46 per cent weekly rise.
This number will increase much further, after England sheds the lion’s share of its Covid restrictions tomorrow.
Covid case numbers are expected to reach at least 100,00 cases a day at the peak of this current wave.
These Covid figures will lead to millions of people being forced to self-isolate each week, after being pinged by the NHS Test and Trace app.
Dickinson said this prospect will be seriously damaging for the retail sector, predicting potential shortages due to supply chain disruption.
“Certainly, from a retail point of view we’re seeing the impact in distribution centres up and down the country…with late deliveries and not everything necessarily arriving on time that can lead to increased food waste in the supply chain, which is obviously really bad,” she said.
“There is a big red flag being raised because there is a huge amount of concern on the trajectory that we are currently on. But something’s got to give because otherwise we will see some more critical impacts over the coming days and weeks.
“I’m talking about impacts on us all as members of the public, in terms of restrictions, in what might be available in the shops, or the number of hours that those shops might be open, and there will be a knock on impact for those businesses.”
M&S chief executive Steve Rowe told The Times that the number of people being pinged by the NHS app is “a major issue across every industry at the moment”.
“Our Covid cases are roughly doubling every week and the pinging level is about three to one of Covid cases, so we’re seeing that growing exponentially,” he said.
“If there’s shortages we’ll have to manage it by changing hours of stores, reducing hours.”
Businesses will be given a reprieve from the so-called “pingdemic” on 16 August when people who have been double-jabbed will not need to self-isolate anymore.
Some are calling for this date to be moved forward.
Housing secretary Robert Jenrick said the government stood by the decision to stick by the 16 August date as it will give people more time to get their second vaccination.
“I do appreciate that it will cause some further frustration and disruption in the coming weeks, but I urge people to ensure they do have the app on their phones, that it’s fully switched on,” Jenrick said.