UK: what is pingdemic and why is it related to the Delta variant | The effect of new infections

The “pingdemic” is a play on words between “ping”, the sound emitted by the official notification of cellphones indicating the obligation of isolation, and “epidemic”.

the the number of new positives in the country has skyrocketed in recent weeks, affecting 50,000 per day, for which hundreds of thousands of contact cases have been forced to isolate themselves, leaving many economic sectors unmanned, from transport to food distribution.

Other businesses, such as stores, gas stations and even the post office are affected by absences.

More than 600,000 people who used the public health system’s virus screening and monitoring application Known as “NHS Covid-19” in England and Wales, they received alerts to isolate themselves in the week of July 8-15, which is a 17% increase from the week previous, as reported by the BBC. .

Alerts in the app notifies users if they have been in close contact with a positive coronavirus case, it is therefore recommended to isolate them for ten days.

In England, 607,486 alerts were sent to users between July 8 and July 15 and a further 11,417 in Wales.

In this direction, many Britons remove the app from their phones so as not to be alerted and not have to isolate themselves, as revealed by a survey by consulting firm YouGov.

Faced with this situation, the government for its part announced that some industries could request staffing waivers, which will allow essential workers who have been alerted to return to work after a PCR test instead of quarantine.

Today, on the front pages of most British newspapers, there were pictures of empty supermarket shelves reflecting the consequences of the situation. Behind the scenes is the growth in coronavirus cases due to community transmission of the Delta variant, which is considered to be more contagious.

According to UK news site iNews, members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said Prime Minister Boris Johnson should be prepared to take action during the first week of August to prevent hospitals audiences are overcrowded.

Keeping pace with infections, daily hospitalizations in the UK are expected to reach between 1,000 and 2,000 by the end of next month, while daily deaths could vary between 100 and 200.