Vaccinated contacts in the UK will no longer have to isolate

R.UNIDO CORONAVIRUS

LONDON, Aug 16 (EFE) .- Starting this Monday, fully vaccinated people who are identified as close contact with a positive person will no longer have to quarantine for ten days in the United Kingdom, Something that is still there for many Britishers. was a real nightmare.

The algorithm of the official application of the British health system “NHS Covid-19” – required to reach establishments – considered close contact with all those who were “two meters away from someone with coronavirus” in the past five days. 15 more than a minute”.

At the end of last July, the people notified by the application broke a record: 689,313 in just one week, many of them incorrectly. The British coined the phenomenon as “pingdemic”, something like a “information pandemic”.

Going out with the application was a risky game. On the bus, in the subway, in the supermarket, in the restaurant … any space was the right target to be occupied by the application’s algorithm, which people began to uninstall on a large scale.

For this reason, in early August the British Ministry of Health decided to modify the sensitivity of the app, which began notifying only contacts in the last 48 hours, with the aim of reducing the impact of “pingdemic”.

For many, being confined to ten days to be in contact with a positive proved to be a problem as they were unable to attend their jobs or scheduled social events.

This is the case of British streamer Kevin Chapman, who, according to his Twitter account, received the alert a few days before his brother’s wedding. Chapman complained about the “vague” rules, when in his case he had received both doses and his antigen test was negative.

In his case, he got the information after visiting a water park and eating out.

“We were well separated there, we asked and paid for a mobile application, we didn’t mix with anyone and the tables were cleaned before and after us,” Chapman told Efe.

Not only have customers been affected by this “pingdemic”, but also establishments such as the Italian restaurant Terra Brasserie, whose manager, Giuseppe Stefanizzi, explained to EFE that they have faced several “last-minute cancellations”, especially in the past three weeks. .

Stefanizzi is confident that the new rules encourage people to come out more comfortably, and explains that, in her case, only one of her employees was notified by application only several months earlier, and she told him “anyway.” to isolate himself”. “It’s better to be safe than not to regret later,” he said.

On the other hand, passenger traffic remains stagnant in the summer months, despite the fact that, currently, entering the United Kingdom from Spain – on the Amber List – requires an antigen test before flight and a PCR on the second day. Is. Of arrival.

However, the protocol so far indicated that if a positive was reported during the flight, the nearby passengers on the plane would also have to be confined for ten days.

This is what happened to a young man from Cadiz Eduardo Revuelta, who was returning from Jerez Airport to London after a holiday with his family. On his return, they told him that a positive had been recorded at the airport and that he would be locked up at home for the next ten days.

“I don’t understand that for one person at an airport everyone has to isolate themselves,” says Revuelta. Could not go to work, attend training courses.

raul bobe