Government pingdemic response chaotic, say food supply firms - BBC News

Government efforts to deal with the self-isolation "pingdemic" are "chaotic" and "too late", food supply industry bodies have said.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said daily testing will help minimise disruption.

Many businesses struggled as staff members self-isolated.

On Sunday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it had now contacted 500 sites that had been identified for daily contact testing.

Testing is understood to be rolling-out to key manufacturing, food processing and wholesale sites across the food supply chain, which will be joining large supermarket depots as part of the initial phase of the testing programme.

But the government's response has been "very chaotic" and "too late", said James Bielby, chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distribution.

Many food businesses were still in the dark as to whether their staff could be included in the scheme, he added, with only 15 supermarket distribution centres with staff on the list on Friday.

Putting in place testing instead of self-isolation would have been better three weeks ago, Mr Bielby said, but now it was "too late" - especially as self-isolation is supposed to ease in three weeks' time.

There are already rolling shortages of stock in supermarkets, and supply businesses are "fighting to keep food on the shelves", he said.

Although the daily number of people testing positive for coronavirus has fallen over the past week to fewer than 32,000 per day, critical businesses have reported struggling with staff absences.

Non-essential businesses, including pubs and restaurants, have also struggled with staff getting pinged.

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "Pubs are closing or greatly reducing their opening hours due to staff shortages caused by app pings - despite staff testing negative on lateral flow tests.".

A spokesperson said that as a first step, daily contact testing was being rolled out to critical workplaces in the food supply chain and that many sites would be operational from Monday 26 July?