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Empty shelves of a Sainsbury's store in Rowley Regis
Photo: Matthew Cooper / AP
In the wake of Brexit, the supermarket shelves in parts of Great Britain emptied at the beginning of the year, now the problem is apparently reappearing: After hundreds of thousands of employees in retail and wholesale were asked to go into quarantine, many shelves remained empty. The Reuters news agency reports and relies on data from the NHS health authority. According to this, almost 620,000 employees in England and Wales were asked via app to quarantine for ten days because of contact with infected people. British daily newspapers also featured pictures of empty supermarket shelves on their front pages this Thursday.
According to the reports, other sectors such as industry or freight forwarders are also feeling the effects of the staff shortage.
Logistical problems also became noticeable.
The meat industry had already warned of a collapse in the supply chain.
Bottlenecks in table water and salad
"We are very concerned about the situation," said Minister of Economics Kwasi Kwarteng the broadcaster Sky.
But one cannot speak of empty shelves in general.
UK’s second largest supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, said customers would find all products, but not every brand.
Meanwhile, the Icelandic supermarket group announced that several stores have been closed due to staff shortages.
According to Reuters, the food supply in London was largely intact, even if there were bottlenecks in table water, soft drinks and some salad and meat products.
The problems associated with the app warning - called "Pingdemic" in England without further ado - come at a time when Prime Minister Boris Johnson has only just largely freed the economy from corona restrictions.
However, the number of corona cases is increasing sharply - more than 44,000 new infections were registered in the middle of the week.
Many people simply deleted the NHS UK health service app to avoid quarantine requests.
hej / Reuters
