Schools plunged into chaos of first day back: Head warns disruption, while students are sent home

The big return to schools in England has today been plunged into chaos with students being sent home ‘with Covid’ less than an hour after arriving, dozens of teachers unable to come in due to Covid and education chiefs warning that specialist subjects may have to be axed to deal with staff shortages. 

As secondary school students today returned to the classroom after Christmas break, head teachers and union chiefs have told of their worries that staff shortages could worsen in the new term and cause further disruption to children’s education.

Education union leaders warned of a ‘stressful time’ ahead as existing teacher absences on the first day of term could become even more ‘challenging’ in the weeks ahead.

Some schools are reporting that around one in five staff members could be missing at the start of term. 

One headteacher said dozens of his staff are off sick with Covid. Meanwhile parents revealed how students are being sent home within an hour of arriving due to a positive lateral flow test.

It comes as, in the most stark warning yet, the head of Ofqual has suggested schools may have to suspend specialist subjects and focus on core lessons as a way of coping with staff absence.

Ian Bauckham, chairman of the exams regulator, said emergency timetables may need to be adopted as schools struggle with teachers testing positive for Covid-19.

He said lessons such as Music, Physical Education (PE) and Relationships Health and Sex Education (RHSE) may have to be scrapped to allow teachers to focus on core subjects such as maths, science and English. 

Other practical subjects such as design and technology may have to take place in larger classes, he also warned. 

School students were swabbed on their return to school on Tuesday as part of a nationwide programme to catch cases – including asymptomatic ones – at the start of the new term.

Every secondary school student in England was given a lateral flow test when they arrived at their classroom on Tuesday. The Government-backed testing scheme is expected to root out cases before the virus spreads through schools and back to the home – potentially sparking a sudden wave of self-isolation among parents. Students and staff will be encouraged to test twice a week and to wear face masks in lessons.

Despite the measures, school heads fear up to a quarter of their staff could be struck down with the virus this month, with unions warning a return to online teaching is inevitable for some this term. One education leader reportedly said the situation could lead to something ‘like a scene out of Mad Max’.  

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi however insists face-to-face classes will stay the norm and the Department for Education (DfE) has reportedly advised heads to deal with staff absence by teaching larger groups.

It comes as experts including epidemiologist Neil Ferguson – dubbed ‘Professor Lockdown’ after producing research in March 2020 that convinced the Government to shutdown the country – said the ‘good news’ about Omicron is that ‘it is certainly less severe’ than previous variants of Covid.  He said this has helped keep hospital numbers down compared with previous peaks. 

However. Boris Johnson stood firm on calls for England’s self-isolation period to be cut to five days.  The Prime Minister insisted that the move – which would bring the UK in line with the US – would lead to more staff absences and not less.

In other developments today:

• Boris Johnson is meeting ministers to take stock after declaring that the government will stick to existing restrictions, while warning it is ‘folly’ to think the pandemic is over;
• The PM has rejected calls to cut the Covid isolation period again to five days, saying doing so could make the staffing crisis even worse;
• Vaccines minister Maggie Throup has played down concerns about a fall in the numbers getting booster jabs suggesting it will rise again after the festive period;   
• Hospital admissions for Covid in London fell for the first time since before Omicron took off, spurring hopes that the worst of the wave may have peaked;
• Britons shouldn’t be offered a fourth Covid jab until there is more evidence, according to the head of the country’s vaccine body, who warned dishing out vaccines every six months was ‘not sustainable’;
• Pre-return Covid international travel tests are expected to be scrapped tomorrow. 

It comes as school leaders in England today warned of weeks of disruption due to high levels of Covid absences among staff. 

Some pupils could end up wearing coats in lessons in the weeks ahead as heads and academy leaders increase ventilation to help keep classrooms safe.

Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis Charitable Trust, which has 52 schools across England, said it is too early to say how high staff absences will be when pupils fully return to class. Based on two primary schools in the trust, he suggested around 20 per cent of staff could be absent.

One school had six staff out of 32 off for an inset day and another had seven missing out of about 35.

The academy trust has purchased iPads for all students in the event of a return to online learning. ‘If and when schools do need to go home, and I think it’s more of a when than an if, we are prepared for that,’ Mr Chalke said.

Mr Zahawi has called on former and retired teachers to return to the classroom as part of the Government’s efforts to tackle staff shortages. But Mr Chalke said even if as many as 30,000 were recruited, it may only be a ‘drop in the bucket’.

He added that schools had already been ‘hammered’ over the last six terms with supply teacher costs. He said: ‘Schools are desperate for support and it’s great that there’s this call for retired teachers, but a commitment to fund supply teachers would be hugely beneficial.’ 

Evelyn Forde, head of Copthall School in Mill Hill, north London, and vice president of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said 13 members of staff were absent on an inset day on Tuesday.

Senior members of staff, including Ms Forde herself, will cover lessons at the secondary school and she will try to get supply teachers in, but if the shortages are too great, classes will have to be merged, she said.

Ms Forde said: ‘We’ve got an assembly hall which is large and we’ve got a sports hall which is really large, but if you take out either of those spaces you’re actually taking out teaching space because we teach in those spaces. So we’re going to have to be very creative in terms of what that looks like.’

She added she was ‘deeply concerned’ that staff shortages and pupil absences could get worse.

Four children had already tested positive for Covid-19 on site on Tuesday, and a number of parents had also sent evidence to the school that their children had caught the virus over the holidays.

Ms Forde said: ‘If you couple that with the staffing – which is looking pretty horrendous actually – I think the term ahead is going to be really, really challenging for school leaders and the young people.

‘We’re ever mindful of trying to socially distance as much as we can, but it’s just not really feasible. We’ll have the windows open and so forth, but everything will present its challenges.’

She said it was a ‘possibility’ that pupils may have to wear coats in class due to windows being open. 

Tom Quinn, chief executive of the Frank Field Education Trust, which runs two secondary schools and one primary school, said they will also make sure windows are open to increase air circulation and reduce transmission, which he acknowledged could mean more students layering up.

He said: ‘We’ve done this in the past. It’s not ideal. It’s not perfect. But we are still in a pandemic situation and we have to react accordingly.’

Mr Quinn said it is likely there will be further teacher shortages and pupil absences as the term progresses, but he added: ‘We really want to do everything we can possibly do to make sure children are educated in the classroom with proper teachers.’

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: ‘We are hearing from our members that they are finding some pupils are absent and some staff are off sick or isolating. The biggest concern for school leaders is staffing. It only takes a small increase in staff absence to begin to cause real problems.

‘School leaders are understandably anxious about how the term might progress if staffing levels fall as some have predicted, and are concerned about maintaining quality of education in the face of shortages.

‘School leaders will be doing everything possible to ensure a smooth return and a successful term for their students, but depending on how infection rates progress, it could be another stressful time.’

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: ‘That concern, that anxiety about insufficient teacher numbers, is raising its head amongst our members.

‘Frankly if schools don’t have safe staffing levels then it may also be the case that pupils regrettably may have to be sent home.

‘The indicators we had just prior to the Christmas break was that in some schools as many as a third of teaching staff were absent. We don’t think that picture is going to have gotten any better for the start of this term.

‘We’re already hearing of staff absences now on the first day back which are higher than would normally be expected at this time of the year. As we often do see during these winter months, we will see the normal seasonal issues that are impacting on our workforce supply.

‘But you add on to that the impact of Omicron in relation to staff who are not able to be in school, or who may have contracted Covid-19, that could make a very challenging situation much worse.’

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: ‘We know children and young people want to be in the classroom and it is the very best place for their education and wellbeing, which is why face-to-face teaching continues to be an absolute priority.

‘The safety measures we have put in place strike a balance between managing transmission risk with regular testing and enhanced ventilation and hygiene, and reducing disruption to in-person learning.’

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said schools ‘desperately’ wanted to teach face-to-face again.

But he warned that staff shortages could spark disruption. He said: ‘Schools and colleges desperately want to be able to maintain face-to-face teaching on a consistent basis, but the reality is that if large numbers of staff are absent this will cause disruption, which may include having to send home classes or year groups for short periods of time to learn remotely.’ 

Caroline Derbyshire, executive head at Saffron Walden County High School in Essex, and leader of Saffron Academy Trust, added: ‘We know that (staff shortages) will be a factor and there will be schools in particular parts of the country where rates have been extremely high where staffing will be difficult.

‘But this sort of mass of supply teachers that are supposed to be there – that’s not happened, has it, so if we have got shortages it’ll be colleagues who are in school who’ll be doing most of the covering.

She said the idea of merging classes, as suggested by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi in the event of shortages, had already been carried out by schools ‘all term last term’, but it was ‘not a long-term solution’.

She said staff shortages would ‘absolutely’ make remote learning more likely, adding: ‘If you hit a certain point with staff absences in a big school you’re talking about maybe 10 members of staff being off.

‘You’ve suddenly got the inability to run a year group – that’s when you start having either year groups or whole parts of schools having to go online, so that’s when you’re going to have that mixed economy of some students being in school and some at home.’ 

One secondary headteacher, speaking ahead of today’s return of secondary schools in England, said he and 26 of his staff had tested positive for the virus.

Glyn Potts, the head of Blessed John Henry Newman RC College in Oldham, told the Guardian that other staff were having to stay at home to look after their own children as nurseries were closed due to their own Covid absences. 

Meanwhile, Ian Bauckham, chairman of Ofqual, today said schools may be forced to drop specialist lessons in order to help alleviate pressure in the event of staff shortages.

Writing in the education news outlet TES – formerly the  Times Education Supplement – he said: ‘In cases where a specialist teacher rotates between classes to teach subjects that sometimes include for example PE, RHSE or Music, it may be possible and use that teacher to teach classes whose normal teacher is absent and unable to teach remotely.’

Mr Bauckham said practical subjects, such as design and technology, which are normally taught in smaller groups for health and safety reasons, may need to be taught in bigger classes with a more theoretical focus.

This would allow schools to prioritise GCSE and A-level pupils, he said. However Mr Bauckham added that ‘different school and trust leaders will have different approaches’. 

 The seemingly less severe Omicron variant has led for calls on the Government to slash the self-isolation period for positive Covid cases from 7 days to 5 – to bring it in line with the US.

The period was cut from 10 to 7 last month after pressure from business chiefs who raised concerns about a new staffing crisis, following last year’s crippling ‘pingdemic’, due to the number of people having to self-isolate

But Boris Johnson today batted away pleas for Covid self-isolation to be slashed to five days, warning it could make staff shortages even worse. 

On a visit to a vaccination centre in Stoke Mandeville today, Mr Johnson urged people to ‘stick to Plan B’ stressing that that Omicron is ‘plainly milder’.

But he cautioned that the health service will be under ‘considerable pressure’ for weeks to come, suggesting staff will be moved to plug gaps. 

Asked about the idea of easing isolation rules – already reduced from 10 days as long as people are negative on lateral flow tests on day six and seven – Mr Johnson said: ‘We’ll continue to look at the infectivity periods, but the key thing is we don’t want to be releasing people back into the workplace when they’re still infectious.

‘And the risk is you’d increase the numbers of people going back into the workplace who are infectious by a factor of three. So you might perversely have a negative effect on the workforce if you see what I mean, so that’s the argument we’re looking at.’   

It comes as parents today revealed how they have been forced to pick up their children from school – less than an hour after their return – because of a positive lateral flow test. Parents said their children had tested positive despite having ‘no symptoms’.  

One social media user, who said they worked in a school, said students were completely unaware they had the virus, despite testing positive. They also claimed their school had been hit worse by a winter vomiting bug and chicken pox last term. 

The Government currently advises those who test positive of lateral flow tests to isolate while they await results from a confirmatory PCR test.

One parent, taking to Twitter to express their anger, wrote: ‘Son goes in for test at 8.30am. At 9.10am phone call its positive so he needs a PCR. 

‘Its likely because he had Covid in October, but the Government decided they should ignore that. So he misses more school in Year 11.’ 

Another wrote: ‘Well, sent Leo to school an hour ago and now have to pick him back up as he’s tested positive for Covid. PCR test next.’ 

One Twitter user, who claims to work in a primary school, and who was responding to a comment on an Irish news article, wrote: ‘I work in a primary school. We have had 0 children sick from it. 

‘Even have children who have CF test positive they didn’t even know they were sick. Had more children sick last term with vomiting bug and chicken pox.’ 

It comes as it was revealed that pupils at up to 100 schools will take English and maths exams online this year as part of a ‘radical’ trial which could see GCSEs and A-levels go digital by 2025. 

Between 60 and 100 schools are taking part in the pilot scheme, organised by the examination board AQA, which provides three fifths of all GCSEs and A-levels in England. 

The trials will also see pupils take interactive tests, which allow the questions to become harder or easier, depending on how well they are performing in real time, reported The Times. 

The ‘significant’ trial, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, comes after two years of severe disruptions due to Covid-19.

Exams were cancelled and replaced with teacher-led assessments, leading to wide-spread grade inflation, with 45 per cent of A-levels graded A* or A last summer.   

The trialling of online papers will not lead to actual grades or clash with exams this summer, with the tests taking place between spring and autumn. 

However they will be used as a litmus test on the viability of online assessment.  

Secretary of state for education Nadhim Zahawi said: ‘After the disruption to exams and qualifications over the past two years my focus now is on the exams that will take place in person this summer, with adaptations in place to maximise fairness.

‘Technology can be a force for good in education, as it can be in all sectors, and I want to keep pushing at those doors to see where we can go further.’   

Colin Hughes, the chief executive of AQA, told The Times that if online exams were adopted on a large scale, some written tests would be kept to protect handwriting from dying out among young people.

However he argued that putting the majority of exams online would be cheaper and better for the environment.

AQA, one of three exam boards, handles more than 12 million papers every summer alone, which creates 600 tonnes of CO2.

This does not include emissions from the lorries which deliver them to and from examination halls across the country. The papers also create 30 tonnes of plastic packaging.

The pilots, which will feature straight forward GCSE and A-level questions, will be closely watched by the government and OCR and Edexcel, the other two exam boards – with a view to bringing in online testing as early as 2025.

Sophisticated software which allows for real-time adaptive assessment will also be trialled on younger pupils – with a view to them being introduced at the GCSE level if proved successful. 

During an adaptive assessment test, pupils will all start on the same level, but the questions will get harder for those performing better. 

It could remove the need for basic and higher papers at GCSE, which block those in the former from achieving top grades, while some of those in the latter can run the risk of failing. 

Mr Hughes told the Times: ‘If you were to design an exam system from scratch, would you start by thinking by far the best idea is to is to print millions of examination papers, staple, wrap in plastic, send them around the country under secure conditions, drive them all to Milton Keynes, chop, scan and digitise them — as opposed to what we’re going to experiment with next year: pupils view the questions on screen, key in their answers, save them and in principle two seconds later they can appear in front of somebody ready to mark. That’s a rather radical shift.’

Of adaptive assessment, Mr Hughes added: ‘It’s not highfalutin technology; it’s available today. 

‘The anxiety that people have about it is that pupils will sit different exams from each other. 

‘But you work out how to measure one against the other. It has this enormous virtue that pupils can move through their own test in their own way and genuinely demonstrate what they can achieve in the time available.’ 

In Wales, adaptive assessments are being brought in for seven to 14 year olds, while in Scotland standardised adaptive assessments have already been adopted for pupils ages five, eight, 11 and 14. 

Mr Hughes said concerns of students using the internet to cheat will be addressed in the trials, with some schools potentially using a small laptop or smart pad device which is not connected to the internet but runs for the time allotted for the exam. 

He said that if online testing was adopted, pupils would begin their GCSE or A-levels knowing they would be taking exams online from the start.

Even Prof ‘Lockdown’ admits Omicron may be plateauing: Ministers bid for ARMY help amid back-to-work chaos as pupils face being turned away from schools, trains stop and bins overflow with 1m self-isolating from mildest Covid variant yet

By James Tapsfield, Martin Robinson and Stephen Matthews for MailOnline 

One of the Government’s gloomiest advisers today became the latest expert to admit that London’s Omicron outbreak may have already peaked as pressure grew on Boris Johnson to stop the ‘farcical’ self-isolation crisis that threatens to paralyse the nation. 

At least half a dozen NHS trusts across England have said they may be unable to deliver vital care to patients in the coming weeks while train operators and bin collection services around the country are having to cancel services because so many staff are off isolating.

There is growing anger among backbench Tory MPs and business leaders that the nation is being ground to a halt by a Covid variant that a mountain of evidence has shown is much milder than previous strains and causes little or no symptoms for the overwhelming majority.

And the normally-pessimistic Professor Lockdown Neil Ferguson – a key No10 adviser whose modelling has bounced the country into previous lockdowns – claimed infections were plateauing in Omicron hotspot London and could start to fall nationally in just a week.

No10 has so far resisted calls from a growing number of experts and politicians to slash the current self-isolation period to just five days and bring the nation in line with the US and France. Ministers have also been told to draw up plans to use the Army to stop the New Year return to work descending into chaos.

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay told MailOnline that slashing the isolation period from a week could be ‘the answer’ to England’s self-isolation misery.  

‘We’re almost facing a semi-lockdown because of people being off work who are perfectly well. You couldn’t make that up,’ he said. ‘The US must have done a lot of work on it… and they have come up with five days as the answer. Perhaps it is.’  

Richard Walker, managing director of the Iceland Foods Group, said 1,700 employees of the supermarket chain were now isolating after absences nearly doubled in the past week. He tweeted it ‘would be very helpful to business if the isolation period was cut.’  

After the latest statistics showed almost 1.2million people have tested positive for Covid over the past week, NHS bosses have been sounding the alarm about spiralling staff absences, warning the crisis poses more of a problem than any uptick in hospitalisations.

School heads fear up to a quarter of their staff could be struck down this month, with unions warning a return to online teaching is inevitable for some this term — despite Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi insisting face-to-face classes will stay the norm.

Meanwhile, employees trying to return to the office today faced skeleton rail timetables and last-minute cancellations. And businesses say they may have to shut their doors or operate shorter hours due to so many workers being in quarantine.

Rubbish bins, recycling containers and bottle banks across the country are also overflowing as councils scale back collections in response to absence levels.    

Professor Ferguson, an epidemiologist who sits on SAGE, said: ‘I think I’m cautiously optimistic that infection rates in London in that key 18-50 age group, which has been driving the Omicron epidemic, may possibly have plateaued, it’s too early to say whether they’re going down yet.’

He added: ‘I would say that with an epidemic which has been spreading so quickly and reaching such high numbers, it can’t sustain those numbers forever, so we would expect to see case numbers start to come down in the next week, maybe already coming down in London, but in other regions a week to three weeks.

‘Whether they then drop precipitously or we see a pattern a bit like we saw with Delta back in July – of an initial drop and then quite a high plateau – remains to be seen, it’s just too difficult to interpret current mixing trends and what the effect of open schools again will be.’ 

Discussing the current Omicron outbreak, Professor Ferguson — nicknamed ‘Prof Lockdown’ for his grim modelling that spooked ministers into introducing draconian curbs last spring — said the variant had not had much time to infect pupils before schools shut for the Christmas break, and a rise in cases is now expected.

‘We expect to now see quite high infection levels – of mild infection I should emphasise – in school-aged children.’

He added that the ‘good news’ about Omicron is that ‘it is certainly less severe’ than previous variants of Covid and that has helped keep hospital numbers down compared with previous peaks.

‘And then the vaccines – as we always expected they would – are holding up against severe disease and against severe outcomes well.

‘That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be as, as the Prime Minister said, a difficult few weeks for the NHS.’

Ministers have vowed to keep schools open this term, saying children’s education has already suffered enough to protect others.

Schools can stagger starting days but all pupils should be back by Monday next week.

Students have been told to be tested between two to three times per week either at on-site facilities at their school or by testing themselves at home.

Secondary school students must also wear masks in the classroom.

Parents are on edge after their children suffered extraordinary disruption to their education since the pandemic began in March 2020, spending months at home learning online.

Experts have said that for this generation of British children, their academic progress has gone backward in almost all cases due to schools being shut.

And it has also caused a growing inequality between state and private school pupils, who received a higher standard of online learning.

School leaders are unsure how many teachers will turn up for work this week while they wait for staff to email in Covid test results.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of heads’ union ASCL, told The Guardian: ‘Schools and colleges desperately want to be able to maintain face-to-face teaching on a consistent basis.

‘But the reality is that if large numbers of staff are absent this will cause disruption, which may include having to send home classes or year groups for short periods of time to learn remotely.’

Mr Zahawi told BBC Breakfast yesterday that teacher shortages were likely to be worse than before Christmas. He admitted that some pupils might have to learn remotely.

The Department for Education suggested combining classes and said infected teachers could deliver lessons from home via streaming to supervised classrooms.

Its dedicated remote learning resource, Oak National Academy, said it was ‘ready for increased demand’.

Caroline Derbyshire, head of Saffron Walden County High School in Essex, said: ‘Staff shortages will be a factor and there will be schools in particular parts of the country where rates have been extremely high.

‘You’ve suddenly got the inability to run a year group – that’s when you start having either year groups or whole parts of schools having to go online.’

Mr Johnson said yesterday he was not happy about the return of masks and the precaution would be axed as soon as possible, but it was necessary for the moment.

The Government is still asking people to work from home if they can.

The Cabinet Office said that, so far, disruption caused by Omicron had been controlled in ‘most parts of the public sector’.

But it said leaders had been asked to test plans against 10, 20 and 25 per cent workforce absence rates.

Councils across the UK are already having to redistribute staff between essential services to keep everything running, however.

Ministers in departments that oversee critical infrastructure and supply chains have been told to prepare plans in case staff shortages require the help of the armed forces.

Help is requested through a process known as Military Aid to the Civil Authorities — MACA — and officials are keen that efforts are focused as efficiently as possible.

‘We didn’t want different departments relying on the same MACA support,’ a Whitehall insider told the Times, pointing to the possibility that soldiers could be asked to drive ambulances as well as assist Border Force.

A senior government source told MailOnline that the MACA applications were still ‘at the planning stage’.

Rail bosses have warned passengers returning to the office this week to expect last-minute cancellations, more crowded trains and delays caused by engineering works.

Nearly a third of rail services at some stations were axed over Christmas after as many as one in ten staff called in sick.

Operators who have already announced reduced timetables include Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Greater Anglia, London North Eastern Railway, Northern, TransPennine Express and Transport for Wales.

Operator Southern has announced that no trains will run into or from London Victoria, Britain’s second busiest station, until January 10. This is due to high levels of ‘coronavirus isolation and sickness’ among staff.

It comes after analysis by ontimetrains.co.uk yesterday found passengers at Manchester Airport have been among the worst hit, where 30 per cent of scheduled services were axed on New Year’s Day.

On New Year’s Eve 30 per cent were also cancelled and 26 per cent on December 30.

Further disruption will be caused while Network Rail finishes the last of 370 engineering works projects scheduled over the Christmas and New Year period.

Passengers on the West Coast Mainline face disruption between tomorrow and 12 January while flood protection upgrades are carried out between Milton Keynes and Rugby.

Trains will be diverted via Northampton, adding at least 25 minutes to journeys.

It means London Northwestern Railway will run fewer services between Crewe and London Euston, with passengers needing to change trains at Rugby.

David Josephs, of All Greens, which supplies fruit and vegetables to restaurants, said around 15 per cent of staff had been absent and some of the firm’s outlets might need to close if this worsened.

Meanwhile, councillors in London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire have said bin collection services have been scaled back as workers continue to fall sick with the virus, just as families aim to get rid of an abundance of material following the festive season.

Several London boroughs have announced there may be future delays to services, with Manchester and Birmingham City Councils apologising for disrupted collections over the Christmas period.

Chelmsford City Council confirmed 23 members of staff were absent and cancelled three days’ worth of food waste collections, while North Somerset Council said they had been unable to pick up 1,000 recycling bins on New Year’s Eve as crews remain ‘stretched due to staff sickness’.

Stephanos Ioannou, a Conservative councillor in Enfield, said the number of complaints about missed bin collections was roughly double the average for this time of year.

‘I’ve been driving round my ward and seeing bins overflowing and Christmas trees are left outside,’ he said.

‘Over the Christmas period, usually I get on average 30 emails a week on waste services. I checked my inbox yesterday… and had about 50 or 60.’

Gloucester meanwhile has been hit with ‘terrible problems’ as bin collectors work in close-knit teams and quickly pass the virus onto one another, multiplying the number of staff off sick at one time, Liberal Democrat councillor Declan Wilson said.

Mr Wilson said recycling collections were stopped altogether over Christmas, caused by a combination of Covid-related absences and driver shortages.

Several London boroughs have announced there may be future delays to services, with Haringey Council warning the ‘uniquely challenging times’ had impacted their workforce.

Newham Council has temporarily suspended the collection of bulky waste items due to ‘higher than normal levels of staff absence’.

Green food and garden recycling bin collections have been cancelled ‘until further notice’ by Manchester City Council due to the number of staff in isolation.

Residents are being told to put food waste into ‘grey general waste bins’ and store garden waste until normal collections resume.

Meanwhile Birmingham City Council apologised for missed collections over the festive period, saying crews had been affected by Covid in the week leading up to December 30.

Covid-related staff shortages have also had a considerable impact on healthcare, with one in 10 medics off sick on New Year’s Eve.

In recent days the number of NHS workers staying at home for Covid reasons has doubled.

NHS figures show that on December 12, NHS England recorded 12,240 staff absent due to Covid sickness or self-isolation. Two weeks later, on December 26, this had doubled to 24,632, and by New Year’s Eve it had doubled again to almost 50,000 – accounting for nearly half of all staff absences, The Sunday Times reported.

Chris Hopson, chairman of NHS Providers, said staff absences were having a greater impact than during last January’s Covid wave.

He tweeted: ‘Staff flat out, especially given level of staff absences. We will need to ask them to perform flexible heroics again if hospital Covid numbers continue to rise. We can’t keep doing this.’

Despite rising staff absences, there are hopes that the Omicron crisis is plateauing. 

Figures are thought to be less reliable due to the festive period, but a further 157,758 cases were reported yesterday — up by 44.6 per cent on the same day last week.

But the number of people dying with the virus saw a 70.6 per cent decrease, with 42 deaths reported compared to 143 on December 27.

And cases in London appear to be heading downwards. 

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said hospital admissions seem to have ‘perhaps plateaued in London or there may be a second peak after the new year now, but it’s rising across the rest of Britain’.

He told Times Radio that, often, for many hospitals ‘the most pressing element of all’ was the number of staff who are absent due to Covid. He said the issues were compounding ‘long-term failure in terms of workforce planning and resourcing’. 

In a round of interviews this morning, vaccines minister Maggie Throup admitted she did not know exactly how many hospitals had severe problems with staffing.

Asked about the number of NHS trusts with critical incidents, she told Sky News: ‘I think the critical incidents are announced and then they can be very short-term ones and it’s saying to the other trusts around ‘can we have some extra help, can we have some mutual aid’. 

‘Sometimes it’s just a matter of hours that the critical incident is in place for, other times it’s longer, but it’s actually reaching out to the wider NHS to say we have got a problem in this particular area and it’s sometimes quite geographical as well and for different reasons, it can be staff shortages, it could be other reasons.’

She added: ‘To be honest, I haven’t had an update this morning, as we know the (United) Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust declared one yesterday.’

America was the first country to shorten the isolation period, followed by Greece and France.

Professor Tim Spector, who leads the Zoe Covid Study at King’s College London, has described the five-day period as ‘sensible’ as long as the individual has had two negative lateral flow tests.

‘A reduction in isolation days would help many frontline services by allowing low-risk staff to go into work and avoid people staying home unnecessarily,’ Professor Spector said.

But allowing people to stop isolating five days after they experience Covid symptoms could actually spread the virus and worsen NHS staff shortages, the UK Health Security Agency said.

It said that between 10 and 30 per cent of people would still be infectious after five days, compared with 5 per cent under the seven-day rule.

Health minister Ed Argar said the Government had not yet received scientific advice on cutting the isolation period.