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Warnings of a Workplace Sickness “Free For All” as NHS Expands Covid Symptom List and Workers Advised to “Stay at Home” When Unwell

by Will Jones
6 April 2022 1:13 AM

The Government’s scrapping of free Covid tests combined with an expansion to the NHS list of symptoms will trigger a “free for all” of staff absences, experts have warned. MailOnline has more.

The vast majority of employees in England are now unable to get any free swabs as part of Boris Johnson’s “Living With Covid” strategy.  

But health chiefs advise people to “stay at home” if they have any of the 12 newly-recognised symptoms, which can be “very similar” to ones brought on by colds or the flu.

It means, in the absence of a test, people suffering cold-like symptoms will be left to decide “whether or not they stay at home and for how long”, unions say.

Lucy Moreton, a professional officer at the ISU, the union for borders, immigration and customs, warned that it is “inevitable” staff will be off work with mild symptoms if they are unable to confirm whether or not they have Covid.

Unions also fear the chaos will only drive transmission up, with Covid levels already at a pandemic high in England and one in 12 people thought to be currently infected.

Only the elderly, most vulnerable and health and social care workers can access tests for free. Tests are, however, available at high street retailers such as Boots for £2. 

England’s mass swabbing regime – thought to cost up to £2billion-a-month – was ditched under Boris Johnson’s “Living With Covid” strategy.

It marked one of the final steps on the route back to normal life, after mandatory self-isolation rules were scrapped in mid-February.

Workers who test positive no longer have to legally self-isolate, although they are still advised to “stay at home and avoid contact with other people”. The NHS also says that they should take “extra care” to avoid making contact with anyone at higher risk of the virus. 

NHS Covid advice also says: “You can go back to your normal activities when you feel better or do not have a high temperature.'”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Lateral Flow TestsLiving with CovidPCR TestSymptomsTesting

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40 Comments
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Treat the population like babies. They respond like babies.

Another skivers charter.

66
0
Alter Ego
Alter Ego
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Hypochondria is not okay. It’s actually bad for your health. But governments across the world have created and encouraged millions upon millions of them.

44
0
HelenaHancart
HelenaHancart
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I had longer, more convoluted response but you’ve said it in a nutshell. How the hell have we survived this long without all the babyfication that has been drummed into the skulls of the masses?

10
0
Cristi.Neagu
Cristi.Neagu
3 years ago

I’m just waiting until they classify “sick with covid” as an identity. You will only need to identify as sick with covid, and no one will be able to deny your chosen identity.

39
0
Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
3 years ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

Nobody should be at work – no-one at all! Because anyone could have ‘Covid’ but be ‘asymptomatic’.
Just say you believe everything the NHS and Government says, and that you wouldn’t wish to infect your co-workers.
Fight fire with fire.

13
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

I suspect there are far fewer people who would strike on principle than there are who will skive on opportunity.

8
0
HelenaHancart
HelenaHancart
3 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

My elderly in-laws actually think they now carry covid all the time…because government said so, despite being in the vulnerable category themselves!

6
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
3 years ago

For years we’ve had the office warriors who keep dragging themselves in to work with stinking colds, ‘because I have to do the month end’, and infecting all their colleagues. I have advocated a more grown up approach of maybe not doing that thoughtlessly, but working from home for a couple of days. Sensible stuff, I thought.

However, this is not a cold, this is Covid (TM). It requires a completely different approach, obviously. I think we know where the greatest number of absences are going to be.

16
-1
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

In the public sector by chance?

21
0
lorrinet
lorrinet
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Not everybody works in an office, you know, although you’d think so. Millions of people stack supermarket shelves, wait at table, empty dustbins, and a long list of etceteras. Yet it’s always ‘go back to the office’, ‘stay away from the office and work from home’. I’d like to see a conveyor-belt employee work from home, or a North sea oil platform engineer. Fed up with all this.

9
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
3 years ago

Madness infects medicine (but don’t send for the men in white coats)
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/madness-infects-medicine-but-dont-send-for-the-men-in-white-coats/
Kate Dunlop

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Camberley GU47 0FD

Saturday 9th April 2pm to 3pm
Yellow Boards By the Road 
Loddon Bridge, A329 Reading Rd, 
Winnersh (Outside Showcase)
Wokingham RG41 5HG
  
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane 

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(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday) 
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Bracknell  
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA

Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

12
-1
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago

Here we go again, Unions rubbing their hands in glee because their members can stop working at the first sign of a runny nose.

27
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago

Public or private doesn’t come into it, this is an idlers and lead swingers paradise and boy, are they going to milk it!

22
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

And where do you believe most “idlers and lead swingers” are employed?

8
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago
Reply to  DevonBlueBoy

I have worked in both public and private jobs and in my experience: both.

7
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

Salaried private sector, I’d assume. Nobody self employed or on zero-hours is going to be hiding under the covers at every sniffle.

10
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Agreed.

3
0
Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
3 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

And why shouldn’t they? All Members of Parliament are at it! Remember – you are supposed to behave as if you have ‘Covid’.

Look your boss in their eyes – tell them you could have Covid, and do they really want you to spread it around the workplace? OK, you feel fine, but you could be ‘asymptomatic’. And that SAGE told you you should behave as if you had ‘it’.
Blame SAGE. Blame the NHS. Blame the Government.

18
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

Absolutely agree, EF.

11
0
Wilt
Wilt
3 years ago

Do people get full pay or sick pay now?

4
0
Wilt
Wilt
3 years ago
Reply to  Wilt

With having a cold that is !

4
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  Wilt

Entirely employer dependent. The public sector and white collar private will continue the largesse. Small businesses (historically the largest collective “employer”, I’m not so sure now) cannot possibly afford it.

5
0
John
John
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

NHS is up to 6 months full pay followed by up to 6 months half pay, dependent on length of service. The sick pay rules were similar when I worked for a GEC company and for RACAL.

4
0
Hoppy Uniatz
Hoppy Uniatz
3 years ago

Friend of mine once went into hospital for a hernia operation. “When can I be back at work Doctor?” Doctor: “What do you do.” Friend (agitated): “I’m self-employed.” Doctor: “Give it two or three weeks.” Friend: “What would you have said if I worked for the public sector?” Doctor: “Oooh… six months?”

20
0
CreweNantwich
CreweNantwich
3 years ago

The days are ticking by when many are going to discover that there are bills to be paid and no meaningful way to pay them.

9
0
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago

Very interesting discussion on TalkRadio with Prof. Heneghan, on how we will continue with up-and-down Covid numbers, as with other previously unreported and unfocussed virus infections. In the same programme, news of the money now being filched by Government, and a new set of rules for restaurants to show calorie counts, plus more warnings of food and other shortages.

Absent from any discussion, anywhere, about what may happen with diseases in the next autumn and winter is any consideration of the effects on health generally, and particular sections of society, arising from an under- or malnourished, impoverished population, unable to live in at least warm housing.

This country has a poor record of wintertime deaths from hypothermia, and the conditions in which people are expected to live will do nothing to mitigate this. No doubt any increases in mortality will be swept under the Covid carpet, rather than be seen as the direct results of actions by government, its departments and its bodies (regulators, NHS etc. etc.).

I would expect some comment from Public Health England (or whatever it’s been rebranded as), but all that’s emerged so far is the nonsense about masks and so forth from the woman in charge.

16
0
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

Hypothermia is the latest Covid symptom to be identified.
Open your windows, it’s the only way to be safe!

9
0
Boomer Bloke
Boomer Bloke
3 years ago
Reply to  GroundhogDayAgain

And if you can’t do that, saw the bottom off your doors, so they can be closed and open at the same time. You know it makes sense.

10
0
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Presumably the bottoms of the doors (if combustible) are then available as fuel for fires?

2
0
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago
Reply to  GroundhogDayAgain

We’ve had a couple of years of cold feet on the part of many of those who suppose themselves to be The Great and The Good, so frostbitten Grannies won’t be anything too novel.

2
0
Banjones
Banjones
3 years ago

It’s just bl**dy ridiculous, isn’t it? Now wimps nationwide will jump on the convid bandwaggon. If you have what is really a mild cold, it’s not difficult to ignore the symptoms and just get on with life. And if others catch it – so what?

18
0
wantok87
wantok87
3 years ago

The problem originated in the “Wannabe important” clinicians ,epidemiologists and behavioural scientists who have no relevance to the treatment of patients. Experts – really? Remember they ignored loss of taste and smell as a symptom and now any feeling of under the weather can be Covid19 or to those who wish to stay off longer “Long Covid “I am more concerned either the WAITROSE SYNDROME- middle class trolley wiping, radio 4 listening ,still masked people who leap away if approached by an unmasked individual.

12
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago

“Living with COVID” seems a lot like the mediaeval version of “living with witches”.

It’s all about belief and ritual.

sars-newt.jpg
6
0
John
John
3 years ago

Long Covid https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60708123

2
0
John
John
3 years ago

Diarrhoea is on the list, people should stay away from work until normal for 48 hours irrespective of whether it’s CoViD19 (which it probably isn’t) or not. This would be the only “new symptom” that absolutely requires staying off work.

6
0
John
John
3 years ago

It was Tim Spector’s response that really annoyed me. Saying that ZOE had been advocating for an increased list of symptoms for the past 2 years and cheering that it had finally happened.
”Prof Tim Spector, from King’s College London, has been campaigning for an expanded list of symptoms because of data from people tracking their symptoms in the Zoe Covid-19 app.
He said: “Main symptoms of coronavirus have finally changed after two years of lobbying… hurrah.””

2
0
Boomer Bloke
Boomer Bloke
3 years ago

Well if you invite the population of the entire world to turn up on the south coast of England to meet their state sponsored water taxi and collect their mask and life jacket, 4 star accommodation, smart phone, branded sportswear, free money, free education, healthcare (free at the point of delivery from cradle to grave) relocation with their family to the location of their choice near their friends of course, huge amounts of Domino’s pizza apparently and ongoing more free money, it’s to be expected that the taxpayers funding all that free money, while suffering the consequences of the population influx on services and other important aspects of quality of life, and unable to speak out ‘because racism’ might not feel quite so motivated to get up and go to work as they did several years ago.

Last edited 3 years ago by Boomer Bloke
9
-1
eastender53
eastender53
3 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Wouldn’t they be leaving if they turned up on the South Coast of England to meet their water taxi?

1
0
lorrinet
lorrinet
3 years ago

They’re still at it. Why can’t they leave us the hell alone? Is this an example of the recently-employed at the ‘nudge unit’ not wanting to lose their jobs?

This government needs to understand that we’ve had enough, we’re sick of the very name ‘covid’, that we are close to zero trust in any of our institutions because we know we’ve been lied to, shamefully manipulated and made ill and depressed in large numbers.

The list of sins of this political class is boundless, and for many the pain and anguish will never cease. Now we have the ever-growing list of vaccine-casualties, which, before long, they won’t be able to ignore, or to order OFCOM to prevent the publicising of. My nephew has just had his third stroke since the booster, and I fear his days are short. The fact that the MSM remain silent about this makes me spit nails.

And now they want us to believe everything we’re being told about the war in Ukraine. Well, I saw the film of ‘dead’ bodies in the street starting to get up in the armoured car’s rear-view mirror. I believe nothing at all, except that they’re intent on dragging us into another war and will use fake images, fake reports and propaganda to do it. Buzzards, all of them.

7
0
Bobby Lobster
Bobby Lobster
3 years ago

Here are 9 new symptoms, most of which are for a cold, and a few for Noravirus.

Any one of these allows you to self-certify as sick, as you can’t see a GP.

Of course, advice from your public sector union rep says you can get a month of, no problem.

3
0

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