Coronavirus

Matt.GC said:

All summer so far there's been a chronic shortage of HGV drivers

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We could have a thread about problems with the supply chain.

It is interesting talking to HGV drivers about lack of drivers. The haulage industry has been warning of a driver shortage. As they used drivers from other EU countries that would except lower wages, driving down pay of all new drivers. Leaving no incentive for british nationals to join the profession.

Now brexit has make many EU Nationals to return to Europe leaving jobs with noone to fill them.

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It could just be a coincidence but isn’t it strange that all of these people are “isolating” during a spell of nice weather?
I know of one family returned from Spain this week and are now “isolating” in their holiday home in Cornwall rather than their main residence in Staffordshire.

BigT said:

It could just be a coincidence but isn’t it strange that all of these people are “isolating” during a spell of nice weather?
I know of one family returned from Spain this week and are now “isolating” in their holiday home in Cornwall rather than their main residence in Staffordshire.

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I mean other than the fact the officially released data shows that week on week more people are people told to self-isolate by the app:



And the same logic will appyly for traditional conact tracing. The more new cases, the more close contacts, the more self isolation. It is crazy that the government did not see this coming.

BigT said:

It could just be a coincidence but isn’t it strange that all of these people are “isolating” during a spell of nice weather?
I know of one family returned from Spain this week and are now “isolating” in their holiday home in Cornwall rather than their main residence in Staffordshire.

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Ah yes I know of many a supermarket worker on a 16 hour contract at £8 an hour with a holiday home in Cornwall .

The main issue as Rob has said is the sheer number of positive tests. Infections were seeded in schools and have spread up the age groups from there, as shown by the heat maps on the government dashboard. Add the absences from that to staff having to home school kids and it's just been an absolute mess for retail and beyond over the past few weeks.

It's probably too late now for kids being off to have a real effect on infection levels thanks to it already spreading so heavily outside of those age groups. The one plus we have is the cracking weather we've had has encouraged people to be outside more. The case numbers do seem to be stabilising in the past few days, but again it's now too late to really help those industries that have been so heavily affected. Many of those places who are so heavily affected simply can't afford to wait until the 16th August for the changes to come in.

I think the slight air of sarcasm was missed in my post but I’m sure some will have used the opportunity to pull a sickie in the nice weather.

Working in the food industry I know the processors have been struggling the last few weeks but this has been more down to lack of lorry drivers than workers in the factory off.
Even without the high rates of COVID we are currently seeing they would be struggling, Labour (sorry cheap Labour) has been a problem since the beginning of last year hence why we are so busy selling automated solutions.
Whilst the current level of cases doesn’t help, I don’t know of a factory that allows you to use the NHS app onsite, they all ask you to turn it off at the security hut, this has been like this since last summer.

BigT said:

Even without the high rates of COVID we are currently seeing they would be struggling, Labour (sorry cheap Labour) has been a problem since the beginning of last year hence why we are so busy selling automated solutions.

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Yes brexit started the issues and then its got worse from there.

BigT said:

Whilst the current level of cases doesn’t help, I don’t know of a factory that allows you to use the NHS app onsite, they all ask you to turn it off at the security hut, this has been like this since last summer.

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That doesn't make any difference if people are still meeting others outside of work.

jon81uk said:

Yes brexit started the issues and then its got worse from there.

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Its a little bit more complicated than that, Brexit may have added some fuel to the fire but a lot of the Polish / Slovakian workers were already starting to head home before Brexit for various reasons, thats why we started to see more Romanian workers.

The biggest issue right now is lack of lorry drivers, again this is not just down to Brexit but various other reasons including working conditions, pay and the fact hardly anyone has been able to train or get tested for a HGV license for the last year.
Anyway we are going off topic so I’ll leave it there.

jon81uk said:

That doesn't make any difference if people are still meeting others outside of work.

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Hmm, but of those who aren't allowed to have their app active during work, I'd be interested to know how many actually go to the hassle of turning it back on when leaving, then off the following day, then back on etc.

Or indeed how many just go "fudge it, I'm deleting the app".

Islander said:

Hmm, but of those who aren't allowed to have their app active during work, I'd be interested to know how many actually go to the hassle of turning it back on when leaving, then off the following day, then back on etc.

Or indeed how many just go "fudge it, I'm deleting the app".

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Which then of course makes you wonder how many MORE people would be isolating at the moment if everyone was using it and adhering to the request to isolate.

jon81uk said:

Which then of course makes you wonder how many MORE people would be isolating at the moment if everyone was using it and adhering to the request to isolate.

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Well very true.

I know of a number of employers who are currently requesting that employees pinged by the app ignore it, and instead complete daily LTFs. Definitely against the spirit of the system, but no way to police this.

BigT said:

It could just be a coincidence but isn’t it strange that all of these people are “isolating” during a spell of nice weather?
I know of one family returned from Spain this week and are now “isolating” in their holiday home in Cornwall rather than their main residence in Staffordshire.

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I get your point, and yes there is some of this going on actually. Some could simply just delete the app for instance or not follow it's advice and I'm sure there are plenty who keep it on in the actual hope of getting that notification. This does happen a lot. I got rid of the blasted thing but can't tell others to do so.

But as @Craig said, there's also tonnes contacted by test and trace that actually can't afford to go off. Many newer supermarket workers these days are on contacted hours as low as 4 per week. They rely on a good 15 - 25 per week to earn a decent living. If they isolate, they only get paid their contracted hours.

Regarding supply chain, food manufacturers are also struggling. They've had similar issues to everyone else and also had a recent international aluminium shortage to contend with. But since ambient food supply has contingencies built in, the manufacturing of food has always been strong. When panic buying happened last year, yes a lot of range was wiped out but there was still plenty of supply in depots, the problem was getting it to stores and getting it replenished in stores.

Too little too late from the government today. Their announcement for distribution workers will slow the problem down but it will be a slog to recover. We've still not got enough HGV drivers or pickers in depots. They've also completely ignored the shop floor workers, probably due to the PLC's playing down the problem to them as to not worry shareholders whilst turning round behind closed doors and just flogging their retail management teams harder. I expect some bigger deliveries to be arriving into stores without the resource to work them.

We won't run out of food as a nation, but expect poor availablity in stores for the rest of the summer. I've seen some projections that retail could see absence increase by 300% within 4 weeks from last week's figures. It looks like they projection may be accurate.

Islander said:

Or indeed how many just go "fudge it, I'm deleting the app".

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And that's why I feel like it's a shame the guidance isn't updated. People are basically removing the batteries from their smoke alarm.

Even if people didn't self-isolate when pinged but just took extra care instead, e.g. did lateral flow tests, or avoid going to see their elderly parents or skip the night out they had planned, there is still a benefit. That is lost if people delete the app.

Following an exposure on Tuesday somewhere down south, I'm now self-isolating for a week. Sucks, and I'm only a few hours in. I wanna be at work right now!

Jonathan said:

Following an exposure on Tuesday somewhere down south, I'm now self-isolating for a week. Sucks, and I'm only a few hours in. I wanna be at work right now!

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Lets find some supermarket sounds. Go on discord, ask stupid questions and be rude about your favourite item being out of stock


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Having spent the past couple of days in France, it's safe to say mask compliance is higher than at home - to be expected I suppose given the relaxations in England and high prevalence of the virus (especially amongst under 30s). However, seeing (packed) English nightclubs open etc. whilst those visiting France are forced to quarantine seems entirely wide of the mark. In fact, given the rural situation of France and the country's health pass requirements to visit many locations - it becomes a total hypocrisy.

I'll not be going home to quarantine. I'll go and spend ten days in Germany and go home from there.

Madness!

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AstroDan said:

Having spent the past couple of days in France, it's safe to say mask compliance is higher than at home - to be expected I suppose given the relaxations in England and high prevalence of the virus (especially amongst under 30s). However, seeing (packed) English nightclubs open etc. whilst those visiting France are forced to quarantine seems entirely wide of the mark. In fact, given the rural situation of France and the country's health pass requirements to visit many locations - it becomes a total hypocrisy.

I'll not be going home to quarantine. I'll go and spend ten days in Germany and go home from there.

Madness!

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The France quarantine situation is stupid and to be fair the normally Tory loving newspapers have been having a go at it today.

I don’t know if it’s a Yorkshire thing but Mask wearing seems to still be the norm in shops up here. Those not wearing a mask are definitely in the minority.

Same around Berkshire, mask wearing in shops seems pretty much unchanged from before 19th July.

Interestingly though, a couple of people I follow on Facebook, who have always been very heavily, vocally ‘pro-mask’, and extremely vocal about the relaxation of restrictions, now claim that shopping is a high-risk activity in which you have to work extremely hard to dodge the hoards of un-masked plague carriers… which is just not true in my experience.

It’s really interesting (and slightly irritating) how certain people seem to actively look for issues, to the extent that they invent non-compliance. I do wonder if these people are just so utterly terrified of Covid that they’ll only be truly happy when under full lockdown.


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Islander said:

Interestingly though, a couple of people I follow on Facebook, who have always been very heavily, vocally ‘pro-mask’, and extremely vocal about the relaxation of restrictions, now claim that shopping is a high-risk activity in which you have to work extremely hard to dodge the hoards of un-masked plague carriers… which is just not true in my experience.

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Confirmation bias means we'll notice more of the people doing something that reinforces our viewpoint. That could be the situation here. Back in the height of the pandemic I was always noticing others not following the rules, but when I stopped looking for the rule breakers then I didn't notice them so much.

My anecdotal experience over the last week is that people around here are generally still wearing masks in the supermarket, but in the pubs and restaurants pretty much everybody has abandoned it.

Islander said:

It’s really interesting (and slightly irritating) how certain people seem to actively look for issues, to the extent that they invent non-compliance. I do wonder if these people are just so utterly terrified of Covid that they’ll only be truly happy when under full lockdown.

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Everybody has their own comfort level. I don't think it's right to criticise others for being more scared about the situation than ourselves. It's a situation where we rely on others for the safety of ourselves, and frankly I don't trust most people out there with that responsibility. I can see why some people find things uncomfortable at the moment.

In my home town in shropshire. There has been a slight drop in mask use.
I am still comfortable going shopping (with my mask on)

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Alsty said:

Everybody has their own comfort level. I don't think it's right to criticise others for being more scared about the situation than ourselves.

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Oh I agree, and if that’s how I came across I apologise.

My point I guess is that it works both ways - if I’m starting to feel more comfortable with the current situation, it’s unpleasant to see people constantly crying out over supposed issues in their eyes, and almost guilt-tripping others that they should be feeling far less happy, comfortable, and prepared to try and get on with some level of normality.


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