PM: “People should ‘stay alert’ by staying at home as you can, working from home if you can, limiting contact with other people, keeping your distance, washing your hand regularly and if you or any of your household shows symptoms you all need to self isolate”
Scott from Devon asks if you can see multiple members of your family in the park. PM answers no (after some assistance from Whitty)
Real change in emphasis (and substance?) from PM. Last night he said employees who can’t work from home should go back to work. Tonight he’s saying “they should get in touch with their employers” about how they get back to work safely.
Wait what
PM says that safety is paramount and “it’s only on that basis that we’re encouraging them to go back to work”
But then in next breath, summing up says
“So it’s go to work if you can but go to work if you have no alternative”
That’s not the same thing?
PM says that safety is paramount and “it’s only on that basis that we’re encouraging them to go back to work”
But then in next breath, summing up says
“So it’s go to work if you can but go to work if you have no alternative”
That’s not the same thing?
The problem with the idea of employees “getting in touch” with employers about safe working is a real asymmetry of power between employees and employers. How is a worker to know if their workplace is “Covid secure”?
Whitty: “Neither Sir Patrick [Vallance] or I are comms experts and wouldn’t get involved in details over comms strategies.”
Whitty says that if primary school reopening is done “slowly and carefully” it’s unlikely to add to R
