The key plank of the government’s advice to employers on reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission in workplaces is social distancing, currently set at two metres. However, as legal guidance makes clear, this is only the starting point: employers are expected to go well beyond this in their efforts to prevent transmission of COVID-19. A recent legal briefing for employers by Cloisters Chambers states that the priority is to enable work from home, and:
Only if that is not possible should employees be required to go to work and only where every reasonable effort is made to manage transmission risk by reinforcing hygiene and cleaning measures and complying with social distancing rules – keeping 2m from others wherever possible.
The guidance further points out:
Social distancing should not be seen as the panacea. Yes, it is a standard to minimise transmission; but the value of distancing is reduced if two people, for instance, have to work in an enclosed unventilated room where they are just two metres apart. Social distancing is the starting point for precautions. It is not the end point.
Therefore, even if an employer achieves the two metres of social distancing, this in itself is insufficient, and an employer may be expected to go significantly beyond this. The guidance states further:
[I]f social distancing cannot be followed in full, then those operations or activities should only be continued if they are necessary for the business to operate.
But the document cautions:
That does not mean that, if social distancing cannot be maintained and it is necessary for that work to be [under]taken, it is safe for the business to operate.
The advice of Cloisters (one of several relevant pieces) is immediately recognisable to anybody working in occupational health as a very good reflection of the legislation, which applies to all employers and for all manner of workplace hazards. The ultimate decision as to what is reasonable and safe is left to the employer, but the bottom line is that the employer should be able to demonstrate that their measures are achieving the desired outcome – in this case, preventing the transmission of COVID-19 in the workplace.
My concern is that the unique nature of the current COVID-19 situation will pose serious difficulties for employers in discharging their duty of care, and this will in turn force employers to adopt an overly cautious approach that could be a serious constraint on the recovery phase. I am not arguing that legislation should not apply, or that a duty of care does not exist – clearly there is a need for employers to do all that they reasonably can to address COVID-19 in the workplace – but I believe they are not being adequately supported in dealing with this challenge, and the consequences could be severe. There is an urgent need for much clearer leadership from government.
COVID-19 presents a unique challenge to employers in two key respects:
Firstly, unlike other workplace hazards, there is no means by which the employer can assess the effectiveness of its control measures. All other hazards can be assessed in some way (e.g., by measuring the presence of the hazard or observing for a work-related health effect in workers). There is no evidence-based means for employers to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 among a workforce, and neither is there any way of knowing if a confirmed case was contracted in the workplace. This seriously undermines the employer in an open-ended risk assessment process: they are faced with deciding which measures are appropriate, and to what extent, but with no means of assessing effectiveness.
Secondly, conventional hazards are well documented with much evidence-based guidance available. For COVID-19, this evidence base is lacking, leaving employers with nothing more than very basic government guidance (mainly social distancing and simple hygiene measures). Legal guidance makes it clear that relying on government guidance alone is insufficient, and employers are expected to go beyond these basic measures. But what other measures can they implement? There are lists proposing all sorts of other measures, the vast majority of which have no evidence base to support them. Evidence is vital: untested control measures are often costly and sometimes even harmful, and all control measures have unintended consequences.
I have seen this already with companies rushing to use temperature checks as a means of monitoring for COVID-19 in the workplace – one of the specific duties of care set out in the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH). There is no evidence base for temperature checks of this kind in assessing for COVID-19 in a workplace, but they do result in a breach of social distancing guidance, potentially promoting transmission of the virus. Likewise, improved ventilation is frequently referred to in guidance for employers, but how should this be achieved? Could certain measures result in increased spread of droplets through the introduction of air currents, possibly reducing the effectiveness of social distancing? How might all of these non evidence-based suggestions impact on pre-existing workplace risks – for example, through hampering communication, or deterring workers from seeking assistance when they would normally have done so?
These unique challenges leave employers very poorly equipped to get their staff back to the workplace. Companies are facing severe economic headwinds while at the same time having little choice other than rigidly to adhere to government-advised measures, of which two metres social distancing is likely to be by far the most damaging. Even if this can be achieved, employers are advised that this is likely to be insufficient in demonstrating compliance. There are high levels of anxiety among employees – with or without medical vulnerabilities – and they require careful assessment and return-to-work planning. About half of all employees over the age of fifty have at least one underlying medical condition, and many of these will need specific risk assessments by healthcare professionals before returning. Many others require reassurance because of medically vulnerable household members.
Social distancing requires a massive reduction in building occupancy. For some workplaces, building occupancy has been cut to below 20% of normal capacity, but the average is about 30% in my experience. Many businesses need to compromise social distancing to allow for maintenance or engineering tasks. Every activity involving co-workers at less than two metres needs a specific risk assessment (with the potential for PPE and the full requirements of the PPE Regulations). Employee anxiety is high, with frequent confusion and dispute over local rules for working and PPE. The woes of the hospitality sector are all too familiar, but there are many businesses that will be unable to continue operating in any capacity because of social distancing.
Government must urgently review the requirement for two metres social distancing. It is particularly distressing for employers to consider the number of other countries already accepting a one metre policy. A continuation at two metres can surely only be justified if there is compelling evidence that a one metre policy leads to an increase in transmission of the virus. If this evidence is absent, then there can be no possible justification for failing to reduce the distance to one metre.
There need to be urgent efforts on the part of government to take steps to support the national return-to-work effort. Ministers must understand that public health advisors and scientists will play no role in the practicalities of how businesses across the UK navigate the recovery. There needs to be national guidance for employers that goes well beyond that currently provided. Specific pronouncements on the likely duties arising under legislation are required in order to clarify reasonable expectations, which alone could significantly speed up a return to work and avoid unnecessary cost. These could include:
- Clarifying the requirement for health surveillance. There is no evidence-based approach available, so employers could be advised that this duty under COSHH is unlikely to apply in most workplaces.
- Clarification that control measures should be limited to a few clear but evidence-based steps. These should be specified in detail, not left for employers to work out for themselves.
- Clarification that, for most employers, monitoring for COVID-19 in the workforce will not be possible – this would only drive employers towards unverified test kits and other unreliable measures which will provide misleading information.
- A reduction of social distancing to one metre in the absence of compelling evidence from other countries that this would lead to an increase in transmission.
The end of lockdown will only signal the beginning of the next phase of this crisis. The potential for COVID-19 workplace measures to continue to exert drag on the economic recovery is clear, and a failure of government to adequately address the support that employers need can only prolong the damage to businesses and livelihoods. Without this leadership, businesses and organisations of all types will continue to wallow in confusion, while all the while being vilified by the press. There will always need to be some degree of local interpretation of guidance or legislation, but fundamental misunderstandings need leadership, otherwise the resulting confusion and chaos will only serve to prolong the damage to the economy and to livelihoods.
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More gaslighting.
I really don`t care what happens with the NHS and will not comply to anything that these shysters come up with.
I have fake documents/id if needed. F.. you commies.
I agree with the sentiment, but have to note a couple of things.
How do you do that? The self certifying bit?
It’s in the legislation & can be read on the .gov site
The NHS app/vax passport was reported to have a self certify feature, but that they were looking to close that ‘loop hole’ and require medical proof in future. Don’t give an inch, this is their tactic. Now they have cemented passports as an option in the public consciousness when they are brought in it will be accepted unless we refuse to play into their game.
No all cause mortality data for “vaccinated” compared to “unvaccinated” equals no free and informed consent, therefore one cannot be legally “vaccinated”.
I’m not sure about the specifics, as I don’t have a vaxxport and am a Scotch anyway. But see https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-covid-pass and
Exemptions for domestic use
If you have a medical reason which means you cannot be vaccinated or tested, you may be asked to self-declare this medical exemption.
I’d like some of those!
The use of made up none contextualised figures provided by the ONS and PHE and of course at little modelling from Prof Ferguson.
What do muzzle mandates, social credit score apps, and mass criminalisation of normal human activity have to do with health, or the Ministry of Health?
What could trigger plan B is the Government saying ‘we are triggering plan B.’
Don’t look for reasons, health, ‘science’, logic. It’s all part of the Agenda. All planned. All in place.
And “the Government” doesn’t mean Westminter, Downing Street, or even the Whitehall Mandarins. It means the Beijing Mandarins, and the Davos oligarchs who issue Grosse Leader Johnson his orders.
Spot on. Via the Faucist pseudo scientists like Whitty, Vallance, Mengele … oh, sorry, he was last time.
Are you sure Mengele isn’t still around?
He’d be struggling to keep up if he were.
If 60 million Brits died of the lockdowns and suicide and death from the jabs, Javid’s mate Xi Jinping will just move 60 million Chinese into Britain. I expect the British Muslims won’t like that, but they’ll get used to making soft toys and iPhones in the concentration camps.
Meaning like everything else they have no plan, no criteria and just going to wing it.
The same as the traffic light system and all previous lockdowns.
They arent organised enough to even have a basic set of criteria to use for any policy.
You’d only need a plan if you were actually interested in making a difference to public health
As it’s all political, they will absolutely want to wing it so they keep their options open
Why provide details from which you can be later attacked and ridiculed when the media is unwilling to turn against you?
Note : There is no plan to meet a minor increase in demand – just more alibi concoction for throttling provision.
You have to be pretty dim not to see through the contradiction.
Any ideas as to how to rid ourselves of this rotten idiotcracy?.. Though I have a feeling they are just a front for the puppet masters..Question asked anyway..
No strong leader for our side has yet emerged. We are at the basics, the grassroots business of refusing to comply ourselves and trying to open others’ minds. The fact that most people now know someone jabbed who got the virus quite markedly has undermined their narrative.
Garden forks and rope still on sale in B&Q and Homebase.
Plenty of lampposts and trees still available.
Were these the same modellers who told us to expect hundreds of thousands of cases a day from the delta outbreak?
Not forgetting the 500k deaths and mass graves. Can somebody direct me to one of them so I can pay my respect to all those great grand mothers and great grand fathers who died untimely deaths.
Neil Ferguson had millions of animals killed during the Foot & Mouth outbreak, even kids’ pet ponies slaughtered in front of their eyes. What a sick and twisted individual he is. And he still has the cheek to show his face, and not just shagging another man’s wife but having her travel across London to his pad during a lockdown when Neil himself said that everyone had to stay at home!
And no face masks for the Conservatives in Parliament needed because “they know each other” – they are laughing in your faces. There is no virus.
2020 may have been the year of hyperbole as well as deceit but will 2021-22 be unrecognisably more severe?
There were these which may or may not be COVID19-related:
https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=MAY415504
https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2021/W23/752550337
(temporary body storage facilities); and
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/4aed5711-c38a-447d-bf8d-40c87c3a7788
NHS Framework Agreement for the supply of Direct Oral Anticoagulants – check the contract value.
There appear to be two reasons *at the very least least* for fearing potentially more casualties:
— the experimental “vaccination/s” have not only brought serious side effects in a short period of time but also induced resistant virus strains:
https://www.americaoutloud.com/covid-q-a-with-dr-peter-mccullough-part-2/
https://media.blubrry.com/voiceofanation/b/ins.blubrry.com/voiceofanation/COVID_Q_A_with_Dr_Peter_McCullough_Part_2.mp3
@56’24 [citing new addition at cdc.gov in the variants section as of (3) September] “…we are now at 99% delta in the United States… so it’s THE FIRST TIME WE’VE HAD A SUPER-DOMINANT STRAIN AND THE REASON BEING IS THE MASS VACCINATION HAS PROMOTED THE SUPER-DOMINANT DELTA…” [my emphasis]
— the apparat’s denial of stay-well kits utilising HCQ, Ivermectin etc and preventive medicine generally – Dr McCullough is a leading light on the treatments btw. These have been deployed in the developing world, but sidelined in the first world in favour of experimental gene therapy.
And the same ones that predicted 4000 deaths per day last October. No one remembers or cares.
Ooh, ooh, I know!
It comes in for any month which has the letter “r” in its name!
Easy!
19th July 2021 = ‘Freedom Day’ because so many have been jabbed.
15th September 2021 = Claw-back Freedoms Day because…….eerrr……..because eeerrr?
When all you have to do for your career is to appear to be better than Matt Hancock, and you can’t even manage that.
Let’s hope they are both good at oakum picking, because that’s all the career prospects they have.
Hiding behind the NHS… Reminds me of how our wartime “leaders” in the US hid behind “support the troops.” Different country, same tactic.
javid has been well schooled by the cretins in control
WTF has Starmer and his crew of inadequate s been doing. Open goal on the deliberate lack of investment in increasing NHS capacity in the last 18 months and reduction of capacity in the last 10 years. What do we get. Nothing.
Same question to the MSM. Nothing.
it’s not about health or the virus.
Fk the nhs !!
I don’t read most of these parrot styled articles anymore, I just look at the comments lol.
Anything reporting what some goon from the Dictatorship says is pointless since they’ll just say something different tomorrow.
Parliament will debate petition on Monday to”outlaw discrimination against those who do not get a covid 19 vaccination”. so please contact your Mp to attend and support this petition
The ‘Health’ Secretary is quoted in the DM as saying that ‘they don’t have to wear masks in the House because they aren’t strangers’…… Seriously, he apparently said it with a straight face.
And because they’ve been eating Scotch eggs.
Ok, then, let all the un-napped just say “we’re not strangers!” Actually, I’m getting to actually know a lot of the un-napped in my town…!
Plan A: have an elephant fart repeatedly in the face of Kim Jong Johnson.
Plan B: have a hippo belch in the face of Kim Jong Johnson.
What will trigger Plan B?
Cooler temperatures.
Yep, winter and low vitamin D people too scared to go out or covered up with face diapers.
Ah yes:
… as experts warned hospital admissions could reach 7,000 a day.
And if they don’t? Then no harm done, eh? Just a little scare mongering and panic stirring. All in a days’ work.
“You can just self-certify…”
So, the whole thing is again revealed as a monumental sham. ‘Self certifying’ yourself exempt from an apocalyptic plague certificate is a logical non starter. It’s equivalent to ‘self certifying’ yourself exempt from the mandatory security-theater-screening at the airport. Total nonsense.
Yep, same with the face covering nonsense. If it worked and was really necessary to prevent infection does anyone seriously think the rules would be so loose? Any old bit of cloth, borrow ’em or lend ’em, toss ’em in the bin or just on the road- must be worn while ordering food but not required while you sit and eat said food a few feet away- it all works people!
Their plan B is of course actually plan A.
They know that introducing the boosters and vaccines for 12-15 will result in a new wave of cases and illnesses and death – they have seen it already in Israel.
This will give them justification for more lockdowns, more control, push again for vax passports, and press on with the next stage of their plan.
If ‘Plan B’ is contingent on a scenario where the NHS is overwhelmed, it is a safe bet that we will be fully signed up to Klaus & Bill’s digital ‘papers please’ global totalitarianism by Christmas.
How long till we get into the “Save Christmas” stage again?
Wakey wakey
they should dig out the pandemic response plan that they threw in the bin last year. it would make more sense then this ‘making it up on the hoof’ bollocks
The reason why he can’t put a numer on that is because the expretzels haven’t stopped demanding that mask mandates, social distancing, generally browbeating the hospitality industry etc must immediately be reintroduced to avert a certain future disaster ever since they failed to stop them being abolished in July.
Before they were abolished, they literally claimed this would create the conditions for a global disaster because of careless Britain. Then, they predicted 100,000 – 200,000 case per day, supposed to happen in the first weeks of August unless …, then came the “schools reopened COVID tsunami”, meanwhile, it’s “7000 hospitalizations per day inevitable unless …” and should the government stick to its guns until 2050, they’ll probably still be demanding mask mandates now lest the world goes under in a fortnight.
Ideally, these people would be removed from all public offices and prosecuted. But we’re not there yet.
It’s hard to tell whose hand is up whose arse, but SAGE et all are employed by the govt and can be sacked if the govt decide they don’t like the messages being sent out. I think we have to assume SAGE are kept around because the govt find them useful.
Prosecuted for what? I don’t think that even utter wrongness or delusion is actually against any law. Keep it real.
The thing is – nobody has to listen to the SAGE types as the epidemiological gospel. But this government wilfully chooses to do so, and The SAGE types happily feed them what they want.
But it’s clear who is the prime mover.
Plan B being part of Plan A.
I’m really sick to death of this government and the Plandemic. I’d put a different meaning on Build Back Better by getting rid of the whole damned lot of them including the Civil Service!
That’s been my position for 30+ years, apart from the pandemic of course but there’s always been something to get the hand wringers running around screaming. Eggs? Beef? Asbestos? Aids? Lead in petrol? New Ice Age? Not forgetting of course global warming or whatever they’re calling it at this moment.
What WILL trigger “plan B”?
Klaus Schwab
Here’s a thought. Plan B will be triggered when we go from October to November; and plan C when November becomes December. And then the people of Britain will finally waken up. Sorry, that last sentence was completely made up and has no basis in reality.
And your headline should be “Health Secretary makes sure he doesn’t say what could trigger Plan B this winter”.
Scotland. Deaths within 28 days of COVID jab.
Sajid Hancock.
Savage Rabid Jabbit.
Fauci Trapped “No Firm Answer” On Why People Who’ve Had COVID Should Get The Vaccine by Ron Paul
https://www.bitchute.com/video/eCkTLj3ZKDom/
Interesting to see what happens when a real question gets asked of these miscreants
Plan C it is then.
There are lots of people on this site who keep asking where can they find information about vaxxport self-certification etc etc.. My site has all this information.
There are others.. naming no names.. who seem to spend their whole time dismissing others’ efforts to fight this. I have personally financed and spent (lots of) time setting up and realising this new website.
It’s simply a HUB with access to many sites in one place to save having to search endlessly around an already compromised web. Luckily, no one is in charge of my salary, my opinions or my life. I am my own person. This is the hill I die on.
STOP JABBING CHILDREN!
I am now ready to go fully live including FREE subscriptions and information (make up your own minds).… if you think you know better then flock off and troll someone else. You have choices to make. Time is of the essence. If I sound angry.. it’s because I am.
https://www.LCAHub.org/
Vaxx passports in full swing here in Germany. Today the law makers in Berlin discovered to their shock that they have thus “accidentally” excluded all kids below 12 years old from entering any of the “participating” restaurants.
Talk about the circles of Hell.
Because kids suffered so much during the pandemic, now it’s time to treat them like vermin.
Germans do seem to like rules…
He even said staffing problems in the nhs will also play apart, well if the nhs staff are so hard to come by then why threaten them with the sack if they don’t want a jab? How many have quit the nhs over this bullshit? Thousands have already quit care homes.
How about Plan Z – Do nothing
Best plan yet, by a million miles.
Those black masks are becoming trendy with senior politicians internationally, wonder whose idea that was?
Lies, lies and more damn lies based on…..? Oh that would be nothing and project Fear rolls on. F E A R… false evidence appearing real
The NHS is going to collapse anyway, under the weight of its own institutional bureaucracy and incompetence, covid or no covid…. this messaging is just to soften us up for the inevitable, and shows that the govt have no plan to resolve the problems with the NHS that have built up over the last 73 years ….
SAGE make Boris panic, and we get masks first, then covid passports, and finally lockdowns. Enjoy Easter!
The shortest distance between A and B is a straight line, so at least that would be difficult for Boris
ie They need/want maximum flexibility to do whatever they want, whenever they want to.
I’m ignoring them as much as possible and just getting on with my (unjabbed) life as close to normal as I can.
A friend who works in the judicial system already told us. The number is 200 deaths a day and we are all back in lockdown.
But who decides how that number is calculated?