COVID: What does “Freedom” Day actually mean?
What does freedom day actually mean for your protocols and controls for work / production?
No need for protocols or controls now?
So, after the announcement from the Prime Minister, you may be thinking that now is the time we can disregard our protocols and not worry about the control measures we’ve had in place for the last few months?
Unfortunately not. If anything, the risk at present from COVID spreading in the workplace is even great than before. The Government has announced that from the 19th of July, many of the restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of COVID will be removed. However, that does not account for the workplace.
“Employers will still have a legal duty to manage risks to those affected by their business.
The way to do this is to carry out a health and safety risk assessment, including the risk of COVID-19, and to take reasonable steps to mitigate the risks you identify”
With infection rates continuing to rise and significant numbers of people yet to be fully vaccinated or otherwise vulnerable, all workplaces are going to need to carry out a specific risk assessment or continue with protocols which will likely indicate a need to continue to put in place controls, including:
Continued distancing – maintaining the 2m rule or 1m plus mitigations for some groups;
Wearing masks or face coverings particularly indoors or if needing to work in close proximity;
Ensuring good levels of ventilation;
Maintenance of good hygiene
Testing for close contact work
Isolation for anyone displaying symptoms or testing positive and their close contacts (with the exception of the fully vaccinated from 16th August).
Test and Trace rules are not changing just yet. People who develop symptoms and test positive will still be required to isolate and so will their unvaccinated close contacts. So, the interruption risk remains and workplaces and productions would be wise to implement some or all of the measures above to reduce the risk of infection to key staff, cast or crew and to possible isolation from being in close contact. In addition, changes to the rules for travellers returning to England were announced last week – potentially reducing the restrictions on Amber Countries.
Employers Duty of Care
With an expected rise in cases when restrictions end, and the removal of distancing it is probable we’ll see a rise in workplace cases and as such a rise in your potential civil liabilities. Your civil liability around duty of care to employees and others remains unchanged meaning that companies could be liable as a result of someone developing ‘long’ COVID from a workplace exposure.
Productions also need to continue considering insurance implications and whether changes that are made to controls in place continue to be in line with the requirements of your insurance companies and, where applicable, government restart schemes. The biggest challenge is still that of managing expectations. As people are allowed to do pretty much as they wish outside the workplace it will become increasingly difficult for workplaces and productions to insist on protections within it.
The Message
As the Delta variant is not only more transmissible , but also has a variety of symptoms not necessairrly including in the current list of symptoms, anyone feeling ill with flu like symptoms are advised to stay away from work and take a PCR test.
You must remind your staff that lateral flow tests (LFT) are not accurate enough to be used when someone has symptoms. Anyone showing or presenting with symptoms must take a PCR test.
When working in public spaces, as of the 19th July public will not be required to wear face coverings in some settings. As a result, this may increase the risk to your staff, crew or cast.
What about the Vaccine?
Currently, vaccination status has little impact on most work activities and therefore we do not suggest asking whether someone has been vaccinated or not.
There are / will be exceptions to this, for example if planning foreign travel or in other circumstances where an individual’s vaccination status might be relevant - motorsport for example.
In the future however, it is envisaged vaccination status may play more of a part in the rules regarding whether to self-isolate or not. You could consider encouraging those whom you know to have had their first vaccine to bring their second vaccine forward as this no longer has to be done at 12 weeks and can be done from 8 weeks.
Vaccines and Delta Cases continue to increase among the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated, and hospitalisations are also starting to increase with the typical a lag time of 3 weeks. But the vaccines are effective against Delta, confirmed (again) by new studies .
The Canadian study showed good to excellent vaccine effectiveness even after partial vaccination with all 3 vaccines against all variants of concern. The problem remains that despite having 67% of adults fully vaccinated, the wall still isn’t high enough to completely prevent symptomatic or severe disease from Delta. We can gain some comfort from Israel with a similarly high vaccination rate where cases have stopped accelerating in the last few days. But over there they’ve not had Delta knocking around for as long, they only used RNA vaccines (which are slightly better against Delta than AZ) and they didn’t have a delayed second dose policy.
Close Contact Cohorts
The rules around CCC’s are going to change very soon. The DCMS will publish these changes soon, specifically around testing. We will share this information as and when it becomes available.