Working Together: Covid restrictions update
13/07/2021
Dear members, families, carers, volunteers and staff
As you may be aware, the government has now announced the ending of legal Covid restrictions from 19 July.
At Working Together the safety of our members, volunteers and staff remains our top priority and, in line with government advice to ‘maintain caution’, we be continuing with our existing Covid Safe procedures in the immediate term.
This will include staff and volunteers continuing to wear face masks at all times inside and asking members who are able to, to wear masks when moving around the building and where social distancing isn’t possible.
We will no longer be allocating members to a specific room only but we will still be ensuring that we make the best use of all the space we have available to aid social distancing.
We will also continue with our temperature checks, regular hand washing and additional ventilation and cleaning measures.
We encourage members, where possible, to follow government recommendations and test twice a week using the simple Lateral Flow testing. We are happy to provide advice and support with this and this is especially important if members are attending more than one day service.
The number of Covid cases is rising significantly in Shropshire and there is every likelihood that more of us will come into close contact with someone who is Covid positive.
Whilst we are in a different place to late January (when we closed our doors for face-to-face services because of the high number of cases in Shropshire) because many members, volunteers and staff are now double vaccinated, it is still worth remembering that having been ‘double jabbed’ does not remove the risk of someone being Covid positive – and therefore being infectious to others.
Also, according to scientific evidence, being vaccinated twice is just over 80% effective against becoming seriously unwell with Covid, but this figure is slightly lower in some people who are classed as Clinical Extremely Vulnerable.
We would continue to ask that if you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, whatever your vaccination status, you inform Working Together at the earliest opportunity. If this is the case, please do not attend face to face services until a PCR test has been undertaken and the results have been returned as negative, or until the end of the government’s recommended period of self-isolation has been completed (currently 10 days).
Working Together can give you advice and support on taking PCR tests.
The government’s announcement is of course very good news and a step on the road to normality, but the Prime Minister has also been clear that Coronavirus ‘continues to carry risks to you and your family’ and he says that ‘we cannot simply revert instantly from Monday 19th July to life as it was before Covid.’.
At Working Together, we will continue to err on the side of caution to ensure we keep our members, volunteers and staff as safe as we can.
We will keep our procedures under regular review and thank you again for your support with this.
Chief Officer
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