Parish News July-August 2020

Yesterday the Health & Social Care Secretary announced that the NHS Test and Trace service will launch today (Thursday 28th May).

Anyone who tests positive for coronavirus will be contacted by NHS Test and Trace and will need to share information about their recent interactions. This could include household members, people with whom they have been in direct contact, or within 2 metres for more than 15 minutes.

People identified as having been in close contact with someone who has a positive test must stay at home for 14 days, even if they do not have symptoms, to stop unknowingly spreading the virus.

Full details are available here.

Latest information and guidance

• Coronavirus FAQ’s: What you can and cannot do
• Latest information on coronavirus: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
• NHS information on coronavirus: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
• The latest travel advice can be found here:  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-advice-novel-coronavirus

Re-opening of our town centres

Earlier this week the Prime Minister set out a timeline for retail to reopen in June. Outdoor markets and car showrooms will be able to reopen from 1 June, as soon as they are able to meet the COVID-19 secure guidelines to protect shoppers and workers.

All other non-essential retail including shops selling clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books, and electronics, plus tailors, auction houses, photography studios, and indoor markets, will be expected to be able to reopen from 15 June if the Government’s five tests are met and they follow the COVID-19 secure guidelines, giving them three weeks to prepare.

We are currently working on safety measures to support our town centres for both businesses and shoppers and will share these details with you once they are finalised.

• In the meantime we would appreciate you sharing the government guidance for shops and branches with local businesses in your area: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/shops-and-branches
• 5 steps to working safely for businesses
• You can also download resources to use on your social media channels and share the link with businesses.

• The working safely webinar for shops and retail today has been recorded and businesses can watch via this link later today.

Our heroes campaign

Since we launched our heroes campaign, it’s received a great response on our social media channels by highlight individuals and groups across our district doing amazing things for others during the coronavirus outbreak.

Since we launched on 20th April to 4^th May 2020, we shared over 40 individual stories, resulting in 24,000 engagements and have been seen by over 279,420 people across our channels.

We are still keen to highlight those doing fantastic things, so if you know of anyone, please do get in touch with us by:

• Emailing marketing@braintree.gov.uk
• Messaging us on Facebook

The June edition of the Parish Magazine is now in the Parish Magazine section of the Pebmarsh Parish Council website.