Virus ‘pingdemic’ causes havoc for UK businesses

London: From watering the plants and setting up tables to arranging bottles on the shelves, Italian restaurant owner Giuseppe Gullo’s hands are as full as his customers’ bellies, with Britain’s "pingdemic" decimating his staff.

"In the last month, I’ve been covering for everyone, from the kitchen to maintenance," explained the stoically cheerful Gullo, inside his Lume restaurant in Primrose Hill, an upmarket London neighbourhood.

After the shocks of lockdown and Brexit, the "pingdemic" is the new scourge of businesses across Britain.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have been "pinged" by the app that tracks the country’s coronavirus cases, requiring them to stay at home and isolate for 10 days.

The emergence of the delta variant, first found in India, has worsened the situation in recent weeks, with cases -- and therefore close contacts with infected people -- spiralling.

The government on Friday had to exempt more than 10,000 food workers from quarantine -- on condition that they test negative daily -- amid reports of empty shelves in supermarkets.

"This is getting out of scale, everybody gets pinged," said Gallo, who also criticised the government’s "confusing" messaging.

Business Secretary Paul Scully said earlier this week that notifications were only advice and those pinged should make an "informed decision".

Downing Street then contradicted him, saying that observing quarantine was "crucial".

The economic think-tank CEBR estimates that the cost to the UK economy of isolating hundreds of thousands of employees until August 16 will hit £4.6 billion ($6.3 billion, 5.4 billion euros).

From that date, the isolation requirement will be lifted for fully vaccinated people.

Some bosses interviewed by AFP admitted that they had already encouraged their employees to come to work despite receiving the alerts.