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Iceland Forced to Hire Thousands More Staff Because of “Pingdemic” Shortage

by Michael Curzon
21 July 2021 8:40 PM

Supermarket chain Iceland is having to recruit 2,000 backup staff to stave off disruption caused by the “pingdemic” after the Government told businesses they “should not be encouraging [staff] to break isolation”. Iceland has been forced to reduce opening hours and to shut some stores due to staff being told to stay at home by the NHS Covid app. The Guardian has the story.

Richard Walker, the Head of Iceland, said that a handful of outlets had been forced to close after more than 1,000 workers – just more than three per cent of the group’s total – had been asked to self-isolate after being ‘pinged’ by the app.

However, he said the company had decided to take on more staff as the problems were patchy – with some stores experiencing much higher vacancy rates than others – while the number of people having to isolate was “growing about 50% week on week, and that was really alarming”.

Grocery chain Iceland is aiming to recruit 2,000 spare staff to help cover absences caused by the self-isolation “pingdemic”, as retailers warned it was becoming difficult to maintain opening hours and keep shelves stocked.

Walker called on the Government to adjust the app or self-isolation rules urgently, ahead of planned changes on August 16th. “Supermarkets need to focus on feeding the nation not writing to Government departments,” he said. He said that about 96% of those alerted by the NHS app who worked for Iceland did not test positive for Covid.

Andrew Opie, Director of Food at the British Retail Consortium trade body, said staff shortages could have an impact on opening hours and shelf stacking. 

“The ongoing ‘pingdemic’ is putting increasing pressure on retailers’ ability to maintain opening hours and keep shelves stocked. Government needs to act fast,” said Opie. “Retail workers and suppliers, who have played a vital role throughout this pandemic, should be allowed to work provided they are double vaccinated or can show a negative Covid test, to ensure there is no disruption to the public’s ability to get food and other goods.”

The warning came as the British Meat Processors’ Association (BMPA) said some plants had already been hit by staff shortages of up to 16% even without the impact of the pingdemic. 

“On top of the underlying worker shortage, we’re also hearing from some members that between 5% and 10% of their workforce have been ‘pinged’ by the [health service] app and asked to self-isolate,” said the Chief Executive of BMPA, Nick Allen.

The shortage of workers affected the meat products that require more labour to produce, he said, meaning those lines would be the first to be cut.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: NHS AppPingdemicShoppingTest and TraceTesting

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29 Comments
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vlysander
vlysander
3 years ago

We really are living in an utterly insane world.

127
0
chris c
chris c
3 years ago
Reply to  vlysander

Sadly it’s very sane from their point of view. it’s lockdown without calling it that.

0
0
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
3 years ago

So how does all this app pinging stuff work in Sweden, Florida, Texas, etc?

25
0
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
3 years ago
Reply to  Major Panic in the jabby jabbys

And why did gove recently go to Israel to learn about their Draconian Vaccine apartite system worked, but did not go to Florida to see how dealing with the virus using freedom has been so successful, does gove have an agenda, is he dancing to the tune of a higher power (not the electorate)

Last edited 3 years ago by Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
35
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago

Literally incredible that nobody seems to be willing or able to just put a stop to this ridiculous, utterly irrational nonsense, even as it causes massive real world disruption.

Even though it is patently indefensible. The idea of testing and tracing other than in the early stages to try to prevent a disease from getting established was always recognised as a ludicrous waste of resources. Yet somehow it has grown into this gargantuan, unstoppable, established machine, consuming time and efficiency and producing literally nothing, bar a small addition to the national output of fear.

51
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

So much for the “Conservatives” being “the party of business”.

25
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I bet a lot of people are really busy because of this! 🙂

1
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

That, of course, has not been the case since Maggie.

2
-1
Aleajactaest
Aleajactaest
3 years ago

Again, The Grauniad….

Give it a rest.

Find a better source.

9
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Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Aleajactaest

Not really a matter of the source. Here’s the Mail:

Desperate supermarkets hire more staff to beat the pingdemic: Iceland targets 2,000 temps to keep stores open as shelves empty across UK with meat, bottled water and ice cream in short supply

7
-1
Aleajactaest
Aleajactaest
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

So why source and link back to The Grauniad? Give em clicks so to speak.

The Fail would be marginally better.

2
-1
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Aleajactaest

Fair enough (never occurred to me that people might follow the source links on this kind of story…)

1
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Quite so: the thought of going to the GroanAid beggars belief!

0
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago

All this nonsense needs to go – masks, distancing, self-isolation. It’s all bollocks, none of it should ever have been imposed, and many of those posturing fools in Parliament know that full well.

The Commons Covid divide: Tories including Jacob Rees-Mogg shun masks in the chamber and bunch together – while Labour benches remain socially distanced and with face coverings on

32
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Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Please let all the masked socially distanced labour Benches come down with the rona

10
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  Major Panic in the jabby jabbys

Personally I’d rather they caught something actually dangerous…

16
-1
BJs Brain is Missing
BJs Brain is Missing
3 years ago

Completely unsustainable. When will one of the big corporations openly defy this insane government? Whoever does, will get my custom.

18
0
snoozle
snoozle
3 years ago

One wonders if someone is targeting Iceland. It would be easy to carry your phone into the shop and stay in there for ages for a few days and then claim that you had a positive test. Because it’s everyone within Bluetooth range, you’ll probably catch most of the staff in a large open space. Draft a few people in and you could start putting the competition out of business—or settle an old score with the manager that fired you.
How much of the pingdemic is malicious?

18
0
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
3 years ago
Reply to  snoozle

People I know who have the app, work for others and want to get pinged for 2 weeks paid time off, especially in this weather, the app is a scivers dream

Last edited 3 years ago by Major Panic in the jabby jabbys
23
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Lockdown_Lunacy
Lockdown_Lunacy
3 years ago

This is so ridiculous. I’m an aircraft engineer and yesterday, while I was dealing with the departure of an aircraft, the refueler said to me, “can you hurry up and get the final fuel figure from the captain, I have to go to two more aircraft after this because my colleague has just had to go home because he got pinged!”

My response? “No! Tell your colleague to delete the stupid app!”

He wanted me to compromise actual safety for imagined safety. Clown world.

41
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Lockdown_Lunacy

WOW! I thought people cycling around helmetless and wearing face-knickers was crazy.

4
0
Lockdown_Lunacy
Lockdown_Lunacy
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

Ha yeah, it’s the first time a real life “ping” has actually affected something that I’ve been doing. To be fair to the guy who was in a hurry, he was put into the stressful situation of having his workload suddenly tripled by his colleague’s stupidity/opportunism in having the app.

3
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we currently have a family situation of having to manage a genuine SARS infection.

The last thing we would do in that process is to trust to a robotic pinging app where intelligence is needed.

4
0
NonCompliant
NonCompliant
3 years ago

Just a thought but can you fake a ‘ping’ to get time off work?

Having never installed the Stasi app this would seem like the biggest benefit of installing it to me lol.

As for the hand wringing, why doesn’t everyone just delete the sodding thing !

13
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

Turning off blue tooth also does the trick.

1
0
rtaylor
rtaylor
3 years ago

Nobody is going to open a new bricks and mortar business if it can be crippled with a ping.

Great for Amazon though. Keep pee’ing in those bottles slaves, whilst your boss blasts off into space in a dildo shaped rocket. Clown world.

12
0
Zoomer@14
Zoomer@14
3 years ago

Wake up people…this is a charade. You may like your time off in the sunshine allegedly self isolating…but you are ruining the economy and furthering this evil agenda.

8
0
Bobby Lobster
Bobby Lobster
3 years ago

After lashing themselves to the mast with lockdown and a wait for vaccine, SAGE and weak Boris had basically had this flu beaten in March.

Unfortunately, the so-called vaccine was non of the sort, and is partially effective only. Yes the deaths (and hospitalisations) have been reduced.

Most of their mistakes have been political. They admitted to have factored in increases of “cases” at every stage of easing, but now are panicking themselves over said increases.

Maybe releasing the young, and un-stabbed to multiple sporting venues was the thing that increased these. The Euros should have not been allowed, unless they wanted the increase infections to prime us for September lockdown.

Talking of reversing “Freedom day” in early August is a complete over-reaction.

They should now be ignored.

3
0
Bobby Lobster
Bobby Lobster
3 years ago

Oh, I forgot! One of the successes of this stupid lockdown saga was that the food supply chain and supermarket organisation was always kept open, for 18 months. There were some temporary shortages, over-hyped by the subservient MSM, but no supermarkets were ever closed as far as I know.

They were not even close to being a “vector”, despite those on tills handling food put on them by shoppers, and shoppers bagging them – funny that!

Now, with the pingdemic causing mayhem, we are supposedly in danger of starving because we are allowed a choice on mask-wearing.

What a nasty shower Parliament is, led by the nose by SAGE.

5
0

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