Pingdemic reaches peak

The ‘pingdemic’ is believed to have peaked as cases ease up, though operators have been warned to expect a difficult few weeks ahead.

Kate Nicholls told MCA’s The Conversation that one in five members of staff in the hospitality sector were currently self-isolating, which was having a “very real impact”.

The UKHospitality chief executive said the effects were being felt across the country, from Devon and Cornwall, to the Lake District, Yorkshire and Norfolk, with many venues having no option but to close or restrict service severely.

Guidance that staff whose phones are in lockers or kept behind the bar are allowed to pause contact tracing has proved helpful, she said.

Nicholls said: “It is starting to have a real bite. The key point that we keep making to government is these are not normal weeks that we are losing. These are key moments in our ability to repair shattered balance sheets and start the recovery process.”

UKH is pushing to get a workable policy ahead of 16 August, when the government will allow those are fully vaccinated to avoid self-isolation.

She said the app settings were explicit that the NHS recommends staff can turn off contact tracing where phones are in a locker, behind a bar or staff work behind a protective screen,

Operators are also being reminded that the guidance on self-isolation is only advisory, but said this was still a difficult position for employers to take.

She added: “Clearly at the height of a pandemic, there’s lots of nervousness around making sure that members of staff are kept safe, so I think it is going to be an incredibly challenging three to four weeks for the for the sector as we go through this.”

The Alchemist CEO Simon Potts said: “We’ve had periods where we’ve lost quite significant amount of trading time. I think we peaked at about, not quite one in five, but about 9% of our team off in some form.”

Sacha Lord, Greater Manchester’s night-time advisor, and the operator of Parklife and Warehouse Project, added: “I don’t condone this, but I think the majority of people are just deleting this up, and you can understand why.

“Parklife has 4,500 staff looking after 80,000 people. The app will be pinging people left right and centre. Many of those freelancers have had no work whatsoever for the last 18 months, and the vast majority have had no financial support.

“Why would they download an app that could tell them to go and self-isolate again for 10 days because they got pinged on site? I understand why.”