An Iceland chief has warned that supermarket workers are deleting the NHS COVID app en masse after being left off the government’s exemption list.
The frozen food giant’s managing director Richard Walker said workers were attempting to evade being pinged to self-isolate by removing it from their phones.
He said that he didn’t condone the move but added that, to be fair, who could blame them?
It comes after the exemption list of those who don’t have to isolate if they’re pinged by the app was extended.
Bin men, vets and prison officers were amongst the workers who qualified for the daily testing scheme, but supermarket workers were left off the list.
Meanwhile, ministers were under pressure to reveal how many of the 2,000 testing sites they’ve promised for critical workers.
Richard Walker told the Today programme that last week he was talking about a 50 per cent week on week increase, it was quite a disturbing extrapolation if you looked at where it was heading.
He said it’s started to steady and that the last few days the pinging has started to drop.
He said that their workers are law-abiding taxpayers but with all their sick pay used up with peak holiday season, it felt like they were probably starting to remove the app, which they weren’t previously doing, and he said to be honest who can blame them?
He said that he wasn’t condoning it, but that he could understand why they were doing it, and that it wasn’t law, it was the government’s guidelines, and it had to be realistic and that their staff were working so hard and had been nothing short of heroic during the pandemic.
He said that the stores were facing the perfect storm due to the pingdemic, peak holiday season for workers and a deficit of HGV drivers.
Richard Walker maintained that supermarket workers were still not exempt, so it only fixed half the supply chain problem, and that therefore, it was a pointless solution, and he said that there was lots of stock to go around, and that they’ve still got deliveries available but that their staff are having to work hard to keep the show on the road, and that in many ways they were now facing the perfect storm.
Government guidance said that close contacts of people who tested positive for COVID were firmly advised to self isolate for ten days, that was unless they could take part in daily COVID tests to prove that they were not affected.
Surely people can see that this app is the only thing that holds us to ransom, and as more people remove the app, the cases appear to go down, and we should all wake up and use some common sense.
People have to work for a living to put a roof over their heads and support their children, unlike the government who have it all handed to them on a silver salver.
But you do know that the app isn’t compulsory, don’t you? And it seems that the app is creating more problems than it’s solving, and there’s nothing wrong with deleting the app because being told to isolate is only advisory now anyhow – it’s nothing more than an app of information.
Everyone that has the app should delete the app because this is getting beyond ridiculous and it should be removed before we have major deficits, public uproar, food riots and anarchy.
Of course, it’s not mandatory to wear a condom, but it’s an exceedingly good idea. So, if you want to abide by what the government are telling you, then that’s your decision like it’s the same choice to wear a condom, but they’re not very comfortable and often don’t even work!
