Thread by @Dr_D_Robertson

We risk creating a legal fiction that workplaces are safe when they are not.

A short thread on the DVLA outbreak, and Government policy.

In order to encourage people back to work after the first wave (presumably under political pressure), the civil service set targets for 4 out of 5 civil servants to return to their workplaces

news.sky.com/story/coronavi…

This was when we were seeing increases in case rates in younger people and was couple of weeks before SAGE went on to recommend a circuit breaker.

On 10 January, the business secretary said ' complete confidence that their workplace is safe'.

Note the phrase *complete* confidence

https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1351584181269245952?s=20

The Government would have (or should have) known that there were large outbreaks, for instance the DVLA outbreak reported today

theguardian.com/world/2021/jan…

A legal fiction is an assertion made by the courts to say, in legal terms, that something is true. For example, if two people die simultaneously, the law may decide that the elder died first.

The statement by the business secretary implying that workplaces are *completely* safe is clearly questionable.

We are seeing hundreds of in incidents/outbreaks every week. This is from the latest PHE report

Unfortunately, it will require a legal test case to determine whether employers can use Government statements to defend themselves, and whether the courts create a legal fiction of workplaces being *completely* safe.

There is a new statement today from the Government.

The words 'completely safe' have disappeared. And the Government is no longer saying that workplaces *are* safe, just saying it's critical to keep workers safe. We can all agree with that.

gov.uk/government/new…

It's also interesting to see that DVLA were one of the organizations who have signed up to lateral flow / rapid testing.

Lateral flow device testing may detect more cases, but by itself is not sufficient to guarantee that workplaces are completely safe.