Isolation for staff pinged by Covid app no longer required
Estate agencies will no longer have to send staff home when they come into contact with those who have tested positive for Covid.
Estate agents have reason to celebrate today after Covid restrictions are dropped, many of which have made life and work challenging for everyone.
From today onwards people who are pinged by the NHS Covid-19 contact app will no longer have to isolate if they have had their final vaccine dose 14 days prior to the ‘ping’.
The changes cover England and Northern Ireland but agents in Northern Ireland will be required to take a PCR test at day two and day eight after being pinged.
But despite the more relaxed rules, The Guild of Property Professionals is advising agents that, if they are pinged by the NHS app after coming into contact with a person who’s tested positive, they should take a PCR test before going to the office or seeing any clients.
“Even after receiving both jabs, it is possible to contract the virus and spread it, so agents should remain cautious and adhere to protocols that will protect their clients and colleagues, such as limiting contact and wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces,” says the Guild’s Compliance Officer Paul Offley.
But Offley (pictured) says the new more relaxed rules will prevent estate agencies being disrupted further including, in some documented cases, the entire staff compliment of a branch having to self-isolate.
“Provided agents have been double-vaccinated, they will be able to keep their businesses open and clients’ property transactions on track and moving,” says Offley.
“If reducing the impact of the virus was not already enough of an incentive, not having to self-isolate should prompt more people to book their vaccines, it they haven’t done so already.”
