As Britain learns to live with Covid, the virus continues to wreak havoc on us, and these difficulties have been exacerbated by the post-Brexit chaos in some areas.

Health

Covid-19 resurgence may not cause the same number of deaths as before, but it still causes widespread problems. Medical professionals and healthcare providers hoped that 2022 would be the year they would return to orbit, after two years of canceled surgeries, delayed treatments and missed screenings. However, pressure on hospitals and other healthcare facilities remains strong. In England, the hospital admission rate Covid-19 – 20.5 per 100,000 people – is now at its highest point since January 2021. It is the fifth consecutive weekly increase. The number of people in Covid-19 hospitalized severely remains very low – 315 patients are in ventilator beds – and almost three in five patients (58%) who test positive for Covid-19 are treated primarily for something else. However, all patients who test positive should be treated separately from others in the hospital, amplifying the pressures of NHS staff already trying to break a record of accumulated routine treatment. With more than 20,000 Covid-19 patients now occupying hospital beds in the UK, finding space for others in urgent need of care is a daily nightmare. Healthcare workers are also becoming more infected, which means there is less staff to treat patients. The number of NHS staff in UK hospitals not working due to Covid-19 has risen for the fourth consecutive week, with an average of 28,560 either ill or having to be isolated daily in the last week. In many cases, the NHS has tried to turn to alternative methods of care, such as in-home services, multi-month prescriptions, and telemedicine. Inevitably, however, treatment for the most serious health problems, such as cancer, still requires a hospital bed and a team of medical staff who are fit and healthy.

Schools

The Easter holidays came this year with more sighs of relief than usual for teachers and school principals in England. It offered relief from Covid-related staff shortages, student absences and closure. For executives, “living with Covid” means that staffing levels are as high as at any given time in the pandemic. The latest figures released by the Ministry of Education (DfE) show that secondary schools have been hit hardest, with 8.7% of teachers absent on the last day of March. Overall, one in five schools had more than 15% of their teachers absent. The absences come at a critical time, with the GCSE and A-levels starting on May 16th. Many schools have responded by having staff available to focus on 11- and 13-year-olds preparing for exams and using supply teachers – when available – to cover other years. The worst-hit schools have sent teams without home exams to study remotely. Students at The Fulham Boys School in London take a virtual exam during a pandemic. Photo: Kevin Coombs / Reuters Elementary schools are also facing tests, with national assessments, or Sats, for 6th graders to proceed from May 9, despite protests from school principals. Paul Whiteman, secretary general of the National Association of Head Teachers, said he could feel “deeply frustrated” with its members, with Covid infections circulating in schools even when the government cut off access to free tests on April 1. . “We all assumed that ‘living with Covid’ meant that there would be very low cases – this is obviously not the case and absenteeism rates remain relatively high. “School leaders feel abandoned,” Whiteman said. Although cases in public schools have dropped, the latest DfE figures still show 120,000 confirmed Covid infections at the end of March. But when the students will return after Easter, Covid’s absences will be a mystery: the department announced this week that it will stop collecting detailed answers about how many children missed school because of Covid.

Food and agriculture

It has been two extremely difficult years for the agricultural sector, which has faced a series of shocks related to Brexit and Covid and trade restrictions exacerbated by a rejectionist government. The latter was described by Boris Johnson as saying that it did not matter if 100,000 pigs were killed on the farm and could not enter the food chain due to labor shortages at the slaughterhouses, as they would have been killed anyway to make “bacon sandwiches”. This week, lawmakers said the Covid pandemic and restrictions on overseas employment had led to half a million job vacancies in the food and agriculture sectors, with severe shortages of skilled butchers and slaughterers. The government’s indifferent response to the crisis, including a temporary short-stay visa system introduced too late to be beneficial, meant crops were left unharvested and rotting in the fields and healthy animals were killed on the farm, lawmakers said. The cost of feed, fuel and fertilizers was rising even before the invasion of Ukraine, with high shipping costs dating back to the pandemic. This has led to an increase in the price of basic products such as organic soy used to feed cows, pigs and chickens. Pig farmers are protesting as shortages of butchers are leading to forced killings. Photo: Ben Stansall / AFP / Getty Images And the promised benefits of post-Brexit trade have not yet materialized, with UK food exports declining last year. While UK companies are treated as a third country by the EU, with additional bureaucracy and consequent delays and costs, for EU exporters it is almost as if the UK had never left the single market. Delays in trade are particularly difficult for products with shorter lifespans, such as marine fish and dairy products. At present, the UK food industry seems to be burdened by a combination of wage increases, price increases and, it fears, food production is exported abroad.

Hospitality

Crowded restaurants and bars on weekends may seem like the hospitality industry has recovered from the pandemic, but many businesses are struggling with the Covid hangover. Debts created over the past two years have to be repaid as the industry faces rising prices for fuel and products – as well as rising staff costs. Other companies did not survive two years of drastically reduced custom. Data from AlixPartners industry analysts, published in January, show a net loss of 8,228 hosting sites in 2021 – a 7% drop. The impact of the pandemic was not evenly felt on the main road. Pizza and hamburger restaurants were the worst hit, with Italian chains shrinking by 22% net or 448 websites. However, there are encouraging signs that independent restaurants are taking advantage of cheap rental deals and private equity interest, up 3.7% or 888 sites. Data from the OpenTable booking platform shows that in March bookings exceeded levels for the same period in 2019, as people flock to restaurants and bars to make up for lost socializing opportunities. Britain’s love of packaged food has endured during the recovery from the pandemic, with an explosion in orders such as Crosstown and German Doner Kebab. It is estimated that 10% to 20% of restaurant operations now consist of delivery revenue. But the withdrawal of government support for the hospitality industry in the spring statement angered restaurant and pub bosses, who wanted to see ministers extend the VAT cut to 12.5%, as the recovery remains fragile. Consumers have also noticed that food and drink outside are not as cheap as they were before the pandemic, while high inflation and the cost-of-living crisis mean that people will seek to cut back on luxuries. For pub, bar, restaurant and cafe owners, the uncertainty is not over yet.

Journey

Airports are showing the most visible signs of a travel sector not equipped to meet the resurgent demand for post-pandemic holidays, with long queues in Heathrow and scenes approaching chaos in Manchester. The sudden lifting of all Covid restrictions by the UK government has opened the door to travel bookings abroad – and unleashed a wave of staff infections. Airlines such as easyJet and, to a lesser extent, British Airways were forced to cancel hundreds of flights due to lack of crew. While the aviation industry has long advocated the abolition of all forms of testing and tracking, it caught on to the leap when the government did so in a short time last month. Thousands of staff have either been laid off or laid off since March 2020, and airports like Manchester have a hard time luring them back. The job market has changed and areas with limited staff, such as logistics or storage, may be more attractive than antisocial changes in security lines or baggage management. Trucks line up at M20 as delays continue in Dover Harbor. Photo: Gareth Fuller / PA New hires at the airport also need to be checked by a government agency now facing a flood of applications – and the process can take months even in quiet weather. While the UK has abolished Covid travel rules, most other countries have not: BA says about two-thirds of its destinations still require vaccination certificates or other documents that need to be checked manually, raising expectations check-in or border controls. The Brexit bureaucracy is also lengthening the 20-mile queue in the English Channel. Thousands of trucks are parked on the M20 to Dover, and a recent collapse of customs IT has added to the delays. The deadly spiral of declining trade with the EU and travel pandemic restrictions have led to the desperate, brazen dismissal of 800 P&O Ferries crew, leaving services on hold and stepping up suspensions this Easter.