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More than 200 Covid-19 outbreak investigations carried out by health chiefs in South Staffordshire

More than 200 coronavirus outbreak investigations have been carried out by health chiefs in South Staffordshire, it has been revealed.

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South Staffordshire Council’s environmental health team revealed the figure to the authority's licensing and regulatory committee.

Workplaces have included factories, warehouses, veterinary hospitals and – when they have been legally allowed to open, hair salons.

But business compliance with Covid-19 regulations has been “very good” across the district, environmental health and licensing manager Jenny Rhodes said, with just one prohibition notice and one direction issued.

She said: “It is since Christmas when I would say we have had the biggest number of outbreaks – certainly within a short period of time. The majority of those have been in warehousing and manufacturing type of companies.

“They have ranged from one worker up to a number of employees, particularly over the last few months. It can be up to 40 employees in a business that have tested positive.

“Some of the most common causes of transmission have been house sharing – we have a number of employers who have employees who share houses. Car sharing is seen as a fairly high risk activity in terms of Covid transmission and it’s not always possible, because of the rural nature of our district, to discourage car sharing to work.

“We are also recognising shared work equipment and shared tools. I’m happy to say the vast majority are really pleased to have advice as to how we can assist them in preventing transmission of Covid in the workplace.

“We did identify some shared equipment that’s perhaps not cleaned as regularly as it should be, and kind colleagues making each other a cup of tea and sharing kettles.

Compliance

“On several occasions we have come across workplaces that control social distancing really well, but sometimes it’s forgotten at break times, when employees will sit together at lunchtime or go for a cigarette break. That’s when it seems these controls slip.”

Businesses in the district have made over 450 enquiries to the team relating to compliance with regulations, Ms Rhodes added. These were mainly queries about reopening times and what businesses were allowed to do.

“They’re very keen to comply and get the Covid compliance right”, she said; “They just want reassurance they are doing things correctly.

“We have received a number of complaints – we have responded to around 200 complaints of customers or employees at businesses, or perhaps neighbours are seeing businesses trading illegally during shutdowns when they shouldn’t be, or a lack of Covid compliance at premises.

“We have undertaken over 1,000 monitoring visits to premises, gone out to see if businesses are operating illegally and checking businesses are doing the correct thing. Generally compliance has been very good and businesses really want to do the right thing.

“The number of outbreaks has reduced considerably over the last few weeks and the next big piece of work we are busy planning for is the roadmap of reopening. Already we are being contacted for advice for events – we have a very busy events schedule across the district.”

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