The Government is "turning a blind eye" to workplace Covid-19 deaths, Labour and the TUC have warned. Employers are legally required to report cases of diseases and deaths caused by occupational exposure.
But bosses have been advised by the Government not to register many occupational cases or deaths during the pandemic because it claims contact with the public is not "sufficient evidence" that they could have resulted from the virus, according to employment law experts.
Between April and July – when there was an increase of almost 220,000 cases of coronavirus across the country – there were fewer than 8,000 notifications of Covid-19 in workers where occupational exposure was suspected, including 119 deaths.