You have waited a long time to be able to open. Your couples are counting on their wedding days actually being able to go ahead. The last thing you want is to have to close again and shake that confidence. The closure of several pubs today after positive tests have been reported has demonstrated the fragility of the current situation.
How do you protect your venue from this risk?
- Minimise the risk of anyone bringing coronavirus into your venue. Check with every supplier, visitor and staff member that they haven’t been in contact with anyone with COVID-19 and aren’t showing any symptoms themselves. The Guides for Brides Track and Trace app can do that for you. You have a duty to your staff and guests to keep them safe.
- Keep guests in their “bubbles”. Prevent guests from mixing with each other, other than where official guidelines allow otherwise, i.e currently two household (inside) or 6 individuals from different households (outside).
- Prevent cross-contamination risk. Avoid situations that would risk passing the virus from one “bubble” to another within your venue. Clean any touch points such as door handles frequently. Ensure that members of staff don’t come into close contact with multiple groups.
- Follow safe work practices. If your staff need to be within 2 metres of others, keep interactions as brief as possible and ideally under 15 minutes.
- Keep it contained. There is a big difference between a single case and an outbreak. If you think regular clients, suppliers or staff may have come into contact with the virus, notify them at once so they can take sensible precautions.
- Know the risk factors. The chief scientists are regularly updating their advice, but it’s important that you and your clients know what the risk factors are. If they are called by contact tracers they will be able to identify whether they put themselves at increased risk by.
From the experts
The process if there is a suspected case at your venue
- Anyone showing symptoms should arrange a test.
- They should immediately self-isolate along with members of their household, while awaiting results.
- They are advised to notify those they have been in contact within the last 48 hours. Those people do not need to self-isolate, but they should take extra care in practising social distancing and good hygiene until the results of the test are known. As a venue, you may want to notify staff of other customers of the increased risk.
- If the test is positive, contact tracers will need to know where they have been and who they have been in contact with. As a venue, the contact tracers will need access to your records. The more information you can share with them, the more accurately they can assess who is at increased risk and needs to be contacted and what other steps should be taken.
By encouraging guests to follow the government guidance, it is likely that only those in the immediate “bubble” of an infected guest will be at sufficient risk to need to self-isolate. If staff and suppliers follow strict guidelines, it minimises the risk of the infection being passed to others and a localised outbreak occurring.
We don’t believe that Public Health England will want to unnecessarily close venues that are fully complying with guidelines. It doesn’t fit with their long term aims, it’s not good for consumer confidence, it’s not good for the economy, and in most cases, it is totally unnecessary.
"We had our first Post-Covid Micro Wedding on Saturday. Our couple used the Guides for Brides Track and Trace app and were delighted with the simple no fuss way it made a crucial job, simple and efficient. Another proactive tool from our friends at Guides for Brides. Thank you very much." - Simon Daukes, Ash Barton Estate
Our Track and Trace solution complies with the government requirements to keep data on your visitors in a secure and GDPR compliant way. More importantly, it gives added protection by reducing the change of coronavirus being brought into your venue and gives a reassuring early warning system to you and your team.