While teachers will now be knocking off for the summer holidays, other places of work remain busy and your office may have been in full swing for some time since the lifting of pandemic restrictions and ‘work from home’ advice ended.
However, notwithstanding that some of your staff may be away on holiday for at least part of the time over the next few weeks, the fact is that the threat to the health of your workforce posed by Covid is rising. Now may be a very good time to make use of antimicrobial surface coating services.
The BA.4 and BA.5 strains of Omicron may not be as dangerous as previous strains, especially for the vaccinated, but the figures have been heading in only one direction since the start of June. According to the latest Office for National Statistics data, around 3.8 million people had Covid on July 13th, or one in 17 of the population. That figure represented a seven per cent week-on-week rise.
What this means, of course, is that if you have 17 people in your office the chances are that one of them will be infected. They might now be well aware of this and off sick but, as everyone knows, the real danger is when people catch the virus and spend days when they are infectious before symptoms start to show, with some remaining asymptomatic.
Add to this the fact that lateral flow testing is no longer free and people without symptoms are not likely to randomly test themselves for the virus.
By making your office environment less conducive to viral particles, you may help curb any spread in your workplace. This could help prevent staff shortages, especially at a time when some people will be off on holiday.
On a more positive note, the latest Coronavirus Dashboard figures – slightly more up to date than July 13th – suggest positive test numbers are now starting to fall. But these are the results of fewer tests, meaning they may be less reliable. Moreover, with the start of autumn just over a month away, another wave cannot be ruled out.