Every Birmingham business 'should register for workplace testing '

Every single business in Birmingham should register for workplace Covid testing before the end of March, Birmingham City Council 's director of public health Dr Justin Varney said yesterday during a webinar hosted by the Chamber.

He made the comments during the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce 's Quarterly Business Report launch, sponsored by Birmingham City University, held virtually.

Dr Varney (pictured) said that every single business must play their part in testing staff regularly, by signing up to the Government 's workplace testing scheme.

Businesses can apply to receive free rapid lateral flow testing kits. The scheme closes on 31 March.

Dr Varney said: “I would really ask every single business in Birmingham to register before the 31 March. I understand there will be some announcements in the next day or two which might make it a lot easier, in the sense of not necessarily having to stand up a testing site and there may well be increased access to home testing.

“We need every single business to do it, and we need every single business to play their part in ensuring people are testing regularly because that is one of the important ways we identify cases early and we stop spread.

“In Birmingham we have done a great job with businesses so far through testing. Rapid collaboration between the businesses and public health has meant we haven 't seen major outbreaks, we haven 't seen businesses completely overrun by Covid.

“We need more to do it and we need everyone to be testing much more frequently. ”

Erica Love, director of sector support organisation Culture Central, joined Dr Varney at the Chamber-hosted event, where she discussed the findings of their 2020 review.

The review encompassed views of key organisations and stakeholders across the region to ensure the visibility, viability and recovery of the cultural sector.

The report found that the sector had 32.5 million job losses since the beginning of the pandemic, with nearly all businesses and freelance workers citing a loss of income since the beginning of the pandemic.

Among those who are registered as freelancers, only 60 per cent have been eligible to apply for support from the Government 's Self-Employed Scheme.

The impact of this has been the loss of 40 per cent of cultural sector workers who have resulted to seeking work outside of the sector in order to remain above water.

Erica expressed particular concerns for Government 's upcoming announcement regarding the extension of recovery support for the sector.

After the announcement that there will be a national £300 million boost to the Cultural Recovery Fund in order to sustain the sector, she was skeptical about how far that money would stretch and whether it would be enough to prevent further businesses closures and redundancies.

Erica said that the biggest risk for the sector right now is the uncertainty and potential austerity caused by changes to furlough pay, which she says will bring the entire sector to a cliff edge.

Despite the hit to the cultural sector in the last year, Erica commended its efforts to adapt to digital methods.

Since the beginning of lockdown, the sector have hosted over 2500 digital events and reached a global audience of 31 million people, one of which included Culture Central 's 'It Gets Lighter From Here ' social media festival in December 2020.

The emphasis now, she said, will be on the opportunity of reopening in the summer, with 50 per cent of businesses expecting that reality to be possible from August onwards.