Advisers have told Health & Protection they are “cracking on” and doing the best they can as the Omicron variant surges through the country and contributes to another record day of Covid infections.
Yesterday, the UK recorded a grim new landmark as it posted more than 88,000 Covid infections in a single day – a record number for any day since the start of the pandemic. Omicron now accounts for 20% of Covid cases in England most of the cases in London.
Commenting on the rise in infections, Isaac Feiner, owner of London-based Lifepoint Healthcare, told Health & Protection Omicron has not affected his business any differently to other variants up until now.
“People and firms have become used to the to-ing and fro-ing in relation to the ongoing pandemic and the government changes. We have also already been through the cycle of ‘here is another variant’ when Delta came into play,” he said.
“People are just cracking on and doing the best they can.
“Whether this new variant leads to even more pressure on the NHS and how that will further relate to interest in the purchase of private healthcare products, or indeed how it affects the actual function of the private healthcare system if needed to step in to bolster the NHS remains to be seen.”
But Feiner added he would like to see stronger guidance and leadership from the government.
“It can’t be easy for those in Whitehall to make decisions, and certainly they have facts we are not privy to,” he continued.
“Nonetheless they need to regain the trust of the UK public. Leaked images of Christmas parties during lockdown does not help or generate goodwill.”
Lateral flow tests for office visits
Charlie Cousins, owner of Hooray Health & Protection, revealed his firm is ensuring staff take regular lateral flow tests if they want to come into the office which has caused a number of Covid scares in the last month.
“As a business we use a number of CRMs which are regularly updated with client notes meaning a easy handover when someone is unwell,” he said.
“We are constantly monitoring the situation and updating our plans as it changes and taking each situation as case by case.”
Claire Ginnelly, executive director at Premier Choice Group, told Health & Protection that while the firm’s staff have been hit with Covid infections in the past, this is not the case currently.
“We are back to working from home now anyway and we have been hybrid working throughout the pandemic when we were not in lockdown,” she said.
“We have a large team of advisers and support staff so if we do have a higher absence rate, our service to our clients should not be negatively impacted.”
Steve Herbert, head of benefits strategy at Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing, said the return to homeworking does make things easier for infected employees.
“Most businesses in our sector are already very familiar with how to continue business as usual despite several employees potentially having Covid infections at any one time,” he said.
“In reality of course the return to homeworking for most makes this somewhat easier than prior to that instruction, as employees can continue to work through isolation and minor forms of the illness anyway.
“And should an infection prove more serious, then an employer of Howden’s size has more capacity to reallocate client work to others until a return to work is possible.
“Hopefully the Omicron surge will be a relatively short lived problem, but it will probably be well into January – or even February – before the vaccination programme catches up with infections and puts us back in control of the situation.”
Following Plan B rules
Andrew Wilkinson, director at Moneysworth, said Omicron has not yet directly affected any of its staff, most of whom are now working from home.
“By adopting this approach we hope to protect our staff and minimise the impact on the business,” he noted.
“If any of our staff were unable to work due to Omicron, their tasks would be covered by other members of staff and of course working from home means that the risk of Omicron spreading between employees is reduced significantly.”
Andrew Parker, head of people and culture at LifeSearch, revealed while some staff have Covid and are taking time off as appropriate, there have been no diagnoses of Omicron among the workforce yet.
“We followed the Plan B rules and from this week are asking everyone to work from home unless attendance in an office is essential. We’ve had a hybrid model since pre-Covid and this has worked well during the Covid era,” he added.
Finally, Steve Ellis, head of employee benefit consulting at Prosperis, said he was thankful that the new strain of the virus does not appear to have significantly hit Yorkshire yet.
“So far, we have avoided any recent infections with only one contact who has tested negative. It does seem that Yorkshire is lagging on the new strain though,” he said.
“We have been able to maintain a business-as-usual service throughout and with the work from home protocols. We hope this will continue.”