Figures show that more than one million English pupils were out of school for ‘Covid-related reasons’ last week – 774,000 of these were self-isolating after having come into contact with another pupil at school who tested positive for the virus. In London, a Tube line has been suspended due to staff being told to isolate by the NHS Covid app. Meanwhile, businesses across the country – including Iceland and Greene King – have been forced to shut premises because of what is being termed the “pingdemic”.
There must have been a collective sigh of relief, then, when Business Minister Paul Scully told Times Radio this morning that “it’s up to individuals and employers” whether one should follow self-isolation rules after being ‘pinged’ by the NHS Covid app. (Almost half of app users say they would be unlikely to isolate if they tested negative for the virus after being ‘pinged’, according to a recent survey.) But other Government officials were quick to stamp out the claim. The Guardian has more.
Number 10 said employers “should not be encouraging” workers to ignore isolation warnings, even though the app’s instructions are not legally enforceable, unlike contact from NHS Test and Trace which is a legal requirement.
The comments come amid a furious backlash from Conservative MPs over the use of the app which they claim is crippling businesses. The latest figures released by the NHS show more than half a million people were contacted and told to self-isolate between July 1st and July 7th, the highest weekly figure since the app launched.
On Monday Boris Johnson said that critical workers would be exempt, and would be allowed to use regular testing instead provided they are fully vaccinated, with full details expected later on Tuesday.
In comments likely to sow more public concern over the use of the app, Scully told Times Radio: “It’s important to understand the rules. You have to legally isolate if you are… contacted by Test and Trace, or if you’re trying to claim isolation payments.”
But he said there was a different legal basis to the app which he said was “to allow you to make informed decisions”. He added: “And I think by backing out of mandating a lot of things, we’re encouraging people to really get the data in their own hands to be able to make decisions on what’s best for them, whether they’re employer or an employee.”
Scully said people should still use the app to check into venues, which he said had saved an estimated 8,000 lives. “So it’s a really useful tool in our armoury alongside the vaccination programme, but obviously it’s up to individuals and employers,” he said.
“I know how frustrating this is, I had to self-isolate last week myself for over a week, and I know how incredibly mind-numbing it is as well as the impact on the economy and the impact on people’s mental health. So I totally get the frustration.”
A Number 10 spokesperson said: “Isolation remains the most important action people can take to stop the spread of the virus. Given the risk of having and spreading the virus when people have been in contact with someone with Covid it is crucial people isolate when they are told to do so, either by NHS Test and Trace or by the NHS Covid app.
“Businesses should be supporting employees to isolate, they should not be encouraging them to break isolation.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Even the official Office for National Statistics “Business impact of Covid survey” email has been struck off “due to self-isolating because of Covid”, according to the Spectator.

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There was a time, not so long ago, when having stats from ONS meant something. No longer. Take your time, no one will miss you.
It’s ironic that Gordon Brown, of all people, was instrumental in setting up the ONS because he was aware no-one trusted government statistics any more.
we should never be Isolated
We Have To Make Mandatory Jab Passports Politically Impossible To Implement & New Petition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYICpHm1VNA
Outlaw Jab Passport Petition petition parliament uk petiti…
Contact MP Link 1 : writetothem com
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Home Schooling – Ex-Primary School Teacher on Resistance GB YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5oS2ejye0
https://www.hopesussex.co.uk/our-mission
ignored it then, still don’t have it. Never been tested, never will.
Stay strong. Recognise the Behaviour Nudgers
“Almost half of app users say they would be unlikely to isolate if they tested negative for the virus after being ‘pinged’…”
So, over half of app users utterly brainwashed zombies, unable to think for themselves.
Surely all of them are? And everyone doing these stupid tests just so that you can go about life. You’re all complicit.
Or they want 10 days off work.
Chaos is part of the plan. So is the sinking of small businesses and supply chain disruptions.
If only these pesky anti-vaxxers would just get the jab, then everything would go back to normal…
“To Isolate, or Not to Isolate: That Is the Question”
Nope, if you are behaving differently from how you would in a normal year because of covid, then you are allowing hysterical nonsense to influence your behaviour.
If you are even asking that question, you have allowed the hysterics to influence you.
My thoughts exactly. I suppose DS need to fill up column inches but I’d rather see fewer pieces overall, fewer like this and some original pieces that make a clear, hard-hitting case that attacks the foundations of the panic. It might risk getting rather repetitive, but repeating things over and over again has worked for the enemy.
Yes – a lot of pieces tend to be just marking time. It’s the new hard data and analysis that is interesting – not ‘Now here’s some more MSM bollocks to rant at.’
More fantasy numbers!
My thoughts exactly.
Like the delay ending lockdown “saving thousands of lives”
It’s all utter crap
Self imprisonment is not for me and anyone sane enough should be the same. Wake up people this is a worldwide takeover of society that has been coming for a long time.
It is time to shout the truth from the rooftops, online, with your friends, family and anyone who will listen. Digital ID is coming and you will need dangerous vaccines to have one.
Rather shout from the rooftops that tenthousands of perfectly healthy people are uselessly sentenced to house arrest every, that thousands or at least hundreds of people develop a perfectly treatable, mild illness everyday, that the same NHS hyenas who’ve already again started to howl about of “overstretched” they are refuse to treat them until they need pallative care and that the vaccination plans of the government mean hundreds of avoidable deaths of people below 40 will occur as collateral damage.
It’s completely ridiculous.In the old saying, they wouldn’t know if the cow calved or the bull broke its bloody neck.
The app has saved 8,000 lives????? Oh do fuck off, you retard.
Delete the App. Go to work. Embrace sanity.
It’s impossible to “save lives”. Hence, “had saved 8000 lives” should really be “is conjecured to have postponed 8000 deaths by an unspecified amount of time” via – usual COVID-form – impacting the lives of hundredthousands – if not millions – in a thoroughly negative way.
Time to shoot another COVID false dichotomoy: There is no such thing as the economy vs people’s lives. In absence of goverments forcing contrived models of live as really believe it should be instead onto people, the economy is people’s lives and the corocrats are hostile to the idea that they deserve any.
They don’t keep sowing wanton destruction out of the goodness of their hearts.
Anyone who downloaded this app needs their head examining. Anyone who still has it should be locked up for their own safety!
Never Isolate
We Have To Make Mandatory Jab Passports Politically Impossible To Implement & New Petition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYICpHm1VNA
Outlaw Jab Passport Petition petition parliament uk petiti…
Contact MP Link 1 : writetothem com
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Home Schooling – Ex-Primary School Teacher on Resistance GB YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5oS2ejye0
https://www.hopesussex.co.uk/our-mission
Somewhere the message that having had SARS Cov-2 gives you antibody protection has been lost.
Wake up Boris-! you isolate in a Country retreat and get paid for doing so – others roast in a flat with overcooked children with no income. because someone at school tested +ve. The Mary Antoinette of Lockdown,
It will not be long before your infantile expression “let it rip” will not refer to Covid19 but to a growing insurrection in those who follow common sense.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-david-martin-dr-reiner-fuellmich-july-9-2021_RlmKScwsMf6ATEG.html
This is an absolute must-watch, incontrovertible proof of what this is all about. You need to have reasonable intellectual powers and attention span to stick with it, but it is utterly compelling and should be compulsory viewing for Bovidiots. Preferably repeatedly, until they understand what they are looking at.
Then there’s the follow-up interview (link below) by Stew Peters starts from about the 40th minute, possibly even more scary truths. This stuff is allegedly going viral. It needs to!
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2021/07/stew-peters-show-vaxx-deaths-45000-cdc-whistleblower-dr-david-martin-ends-covid-narrative/
Many people do not find self isolating frustrating especially if they don’t like working. It’s a holiday.
Of course, you’re right, especially when the weather is so nice. 17 months of paid holiday so far. Who wouldn’t just love it? Apart from maybe the SME employers who need to start trading or they’ll die, the self-employed, and many others who are responsible for generating their own incomes.
The beaches are full of middle-management and office waller types soaking up the sun.
Just delete the bloody thing. Why would anyone even Bovidiots keep an app that tracks, traces, and tells you to ‘Lock yourself up’ without any form of trial, guilty or most likely completely innocent?
Why FFS? You really would have to be a Bovid to do that to yourself.