From today, it is illegal not to isolate if you've been asked to by Test and Trace. Fines go up to £10,000
I've got hold of the document - marked OFFICIAL SENSITIVE - with the changes to contact tracers' scripts
Change 1: contact tracers will have to ask for people's addresses
Change 2: they will have to stress the change to the law
This might seem not seem much but it's causing some unease. One Test and Trace source says "it makes it feel quite different" - more like enforcement
The source adds (1/2)
"If you want to get people to give you good contact tracing information (or any) then you have to build rapport...
...Asking for personal information about where you are isolating and saying we will snitch on you if we think you're not doing it can easily come across as the COVID police. It's supposed to be based on the principle of consent" (2/2)
Obviously there is a real need to get people to self-isolate and these measures are designed to do just that. Hopefully this worry is needless - worth keeping an eye on though / ENDS
For all the concerns - many legitimate - about the new punishments for breaking self-isolation, it's worth remembering that not having any is very unusual. In Germany, for instance, you can be fined up to €25,000 (although I understand enforcement is very spotty)
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I want to tell you a hopeful story. A story about the things that can be done here and now to mitigate this terrible illness
Eighteen months ago, I caught a cough. It was a little annoying, so I took a day off work, thinking that would be the end of it
The next morning, I woke up and everything was different
Long covid is a condition with an almost endless list of symptoms. For me, it meant a complete loss of energy, most noticeably in my brain. I made my living writing and talking. Now I was barely able to take on a complex thought or hold a lengthy conversation
Don’t like putting personal things on Twitter, but I’ve just logged on after a while and found a load of DMs asking why I’ve disappeared, which is… a good question
If you haven’t seen me recently it’s because I’ve got a nasty case of long covid. Eight months and counting :(
My main symptoms are fatigue and brain fog. Medically I’m in perfect health – none of the tests show anything – but I have *much* less energy. If I push myself too hard then I just collapse. It’s like someone has reached inside and turned me off. It's scary
My health has improved since this all began in March. I don’t have to go to bed for days after checking my emails. But I still get tired very easily, even after relatively moderate activity – and I have a two-year-old, so keeping things moderate isn't straightforward
On the rare occasions their data was used for contact tracing, businesses were encouraged to call customers themselves, a breach of data protection law
The Open Government Partnership is an international club which supports open government around the world
Its intervention means the UK will become the ninth of its 78 members to go under review, joining a list that includes Bulgaria, Malawi and Malta news.sky.com/story/uk-gover…
When the Open Government Partnership was set up in 2011, the UK really was the world leader in open government
Public Health England is set to be replaced by the new National Institute for Health Protection
But no-one knows what's going to happen to the bits of PHE that aren't about health protection. You know: mental health, obesity, smoking, air quality, health inequality...
According to the senior staff at the meeting (below), a final decision hasn't been made, but Matt Hancock has given "a very strong steer" about what he wants to happen to these parts of PHE
He wants them to be under the control of Matt Hancock