While restrictions are easing across the Channel, the economic recovery is threatened by a large number of contact cases in a context of outbreaks of contamination carried by the Delta variant of the Covid.

Some restaurants have had to close their doors and factories are sluggish.

In the United Kingdom, 20% of employees in the catering sector can no longer go to work because they are in contact with people infected with Covid-19 and must isolate themselves.

In the country, quarantine obligations for people likely to have been in contact with the virus are exploding and threatening the recovery of the economy, amid a surge in contamination fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant.

In the week ending July 14 alone, more than 600,000 self-isolating notifications were sent.

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"The past ten days have been a nightmare"

As restrictions ease, many Britons can no longer travel to work. Several sectors are severely affected, such as the automotive sector, public transport and catering. This epidemic within the pandemic is thus baptized "pingdemic", a pun between "ping" (receiving a notification from the tracking application) and "epidemic". The situation is such that owners of pubs and restaurants have been forced to temporarily close their establishments.

"The last ten days have been a nightmare. We had to close a restaurant because too many employees had to isolate themselves," said Tom Kerridge, a famous English chef, Michelin star, who testified on the radio.

"There are so many small businesses and people out there ... I have two dogs that I had to take to the vet this week but the practice is only open for emergencies as they too lack staff."

1.7 million Britons are believed to be in solitary confinement

Last Saturday, a London Underground line was even suspended due to a staff shortage. Nissan's plant in Sunderland, in the north of the country, has also had to slow production as hundreds of employees are in quarantine. As the summer holidays approach, more than a million children have also been forced into self-isolation, forcing their parents to stay at home. A total of 1.7 million Britons are believed to be in solitary confinement at present.

The quarantine requirement in the event of exposure to the virus should however be lifted for people vaccinated from August 16. Alarmed by the situation, more than a dozen professional organizations implore the government to bring forward this deadline. "We are obviously aware of the impact felt by certain sectors and we are working closely with them," commented a spokesperson for Boris Johnson, assuring that there was "no problem" in terms of supplies and that the food supply chain was "resilient".