'Pingdemic' pressure on council staff and services

Workers having to isolate because of the "pingdemic" is putting pressure on local services, councils are warning.

Waste and recycling collections, street cleaning and social services have all been hit as workers stay home after being "pinged" by Covid contact tracing services.

The Welsh Local Government Association says the weeks until rules on isolating are set to be relaxed will be "tough".

The Welsh government said it was ending isolation for fully vaccinated adults.

According to the leader of the local government body, Andrew Morgan, who also leads Rhondda Cynon Taf council, said authorities across Wales were struggling with staffing levels because of self-isolation rules.

"My council is having significant pressures in frontline services so around our refuse and waste collection services, highways," he said.

"I've been speaking to other council leaders who are having pressure in social services in particular, which does seem to be across the board.

"We are having to manage this for the next couple of weeks until the changes come into place."

Despite the impact of absences he said most services were continuing "as best as possible", but it was a juggling act in some areas.

"We are having support staff coming in to support local authorities, but, for example in our local authority last week, we had to redeploy 15 of our [street] cleansing staff to support waste collection on Thursday and Friday or else they would have seen some of the recycling and waste collection etc, bin services being either fallen behind or suspended," he said.

The rules on self-isolation in Wales will change in August for those who are fully vaccinated contacts of somebody with Covid.

The Welsh government intends to ease the restrictions on isolating during the next three-week review period, which begins on 7 August, but has not set a precise date.

Mr Morgan said they were trying to get as many people as possible fully vaccinated to ensure more would benefit from the change in rules and could "continue with their normal lives".

But until then, he told BBC Radio Wales' Gareth Lewis: "It's going to be a tough time.

"I've spoken to a lot of health boards who are facing similar problems.

"It's happening in hospitality and elsewhere, but it is still really important because there is still an awful lot of people yet to have their second jab."

He added: "I would just encourage people, if they haven't had their vaccine at all, if they haven't had their first or second vaccine, to register and get it.

"It is clearly breaking the link, it is reducing the numbers going into hospital.

"It is important that the more people get vaccinated, the more chance we have of getting our normal lives back."

A Welsh government spokeswoman said: "Throughout the pandemic, council workers have provided critical services to communities across Wales.

"The first minister announced our intention to remove the requirement for fully-vaccinated adults, who are close contacts of someone who has tested positive, to self-isolate next month. We are working through the many changes which need to be put in place to the Test Trace Protect system."