Living with Covid - updated guidance for staff

01 Apr 2022

A message from Professor Nalin Thakkar, Vice-President for Social Responsibility and chair of the Campus Management Group

There has been a welcome return to normality on our campus since the beginning of the year and the graduation ceremonies and the accompanying celebrations currently underway have added greatly to this.

As 1 April, 2022 is the start of the next phase of Government’s Living with Covid plan I thought it would be helpful to update you on campus safety. You can get further guidance on this.

As you are aware, most restrictions have now ended. From today, universal free testing for Covid will not be available and we will not need to consider Covid specifically in risk assessments. Find out more about your eligibility for free Covid tests and ordering tests.

Some of you may be concerned by the current high rates of Covid infections. There are high levels of immunity against Covid in the population and for the majority of vaccinated people Covid is unlikely to cause serious illness. Nevertheless, there are some people who may be vulnerable despite being vaccinated and it is very important that we all act responsibly and keep everyone safe at work.

We will continue to take advice from our Director of Public Health and take a pragmatic approach to managing and preventing Covid in our staff, students and visitors. We will ensure face masks and hand sanitiser are available across the campus and implement best practice for cleaning and ventilation measures to reduce risk of transmission. We will continue to monitor the situation and review our guidance regularly.

Vaccination provides the best protection against Covid. We strongly recommend everyone to get fully vaccinated or take up their booster dose if they are eligible.

We encourage people to wear face masks indoors when moving around and in crowded multiuser spaces. There may be additional spaces where you may be required to wear face masks because this is indicated by a risk assessment. 

If you have symptoms of Covid, please inform your line manager; we advise you to stay at home and avoid contact with other people, until you feel well enough to resume normal activities and no longer have a high temperature. We recommend people stay at home for at least 5 days after their symptoms first appear.

If you have been in household contact with someone who has Covid but are asymptomatic then you do not have to isolate and can continue to work. If you are able to work from home you may choose to self-isolate for a period of 5 days to reduce the risk to other people.

Government guidance is frequently changing and we advise that you follow the latest guidance. Please also continue to report if you are symptomatic, isolating or test positive using our online survey. It will help us to monitor the situation and make any necessary changes to keep everyone safe.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Occupational Health, who will be able to offer you advice and guidance. You can contact them on 01612752858 or by emailing millocchealth@manchester.ac.uk