Covid: Suffolk businesses welcome changes to isolation rules

The self-isolation period for people who test positive for Covid-19 has been cut to five full days in England. What does this mean for businesses and educational settings, and is it a good thing?

Last month the isolation period was cut from 10 days to seven.

From today, the minimum isolation period is reduced to five days, providing people test negative on both day five and the start of day six.

At the Oaks Nursery in Felixstowe they have had as many as one in six staff off self-isolating, making day-to-day planning of rotas difficult.

Manager Vicky Harvey says every day is a "struggle".

"It's been hard. We're having to look at numbers and staffing and if you have staff calling in sick, I need to phone around other nurseries to find out if they have got spare stuff. We have to juggle it every day," she says.

She says they have 60 staff and as well as having the team numbers whittled down due to Covid "you have to deep clean the nursery to protect everyone as best you can".

Ms Harvey hopes the reduced isolation period will help.

"I don't have to worry about covering a 10-day period, just a five- or six-day period instead," she says.

"I can work out when my staff have to isolate from to when they can come back and then it means I've got less cover to try to find.

"Most staff have had it but there's no guarantee they're not going to get it again. It's a daily struggle with having to cover everything."

The number of staff self-isolating at Alpha Nurseries Limited, which owns 12 nurseries in Suffolk, including Oaks Nursery, has proved "challenging", to the point where it had to close one of the nurseries due to a lack of staff.

Although it welcomes the reduction in the days people have to self-isolate, it says it will still not be straightforward.

Cathryn Dickens, from Alpha Nurseries, says: "It's been quite a challenge in terms of having those phone calls over a weekend and trying to source those staff members to replace them, while keeping within our legal requirements.

"It's great that it's reduced down to five days, however the unpredictability of those staff members testing negative, it's that reliance on those two negative tests."

She says before they open in the morning, they need to ensure staff are available "so we cannot rely on staff having those negative tests; we need to put staffing plans into place to ensure we can accept the children coming in".

Bistro on the Quay in Ipswich says self-isolation rules over Christmas led to cancelled bookings and a 50% loss in revenue.

But owner Julien Jourdain welcomes the changes to the guidance and says he is feeling "confident" of better times ahead.

"We definitely see confidence in customers coming back. On Saturday, for example, we were fully booked and there was a nice buzz in the restaurant," he says.

"I'm very confident, I do believe we are going to beat this thing and we are going to have a very good spring."

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