Sefton Council’s Environmental Health Team is reminding some of the Borough’s businesses that they need to create a QR code for their premises which people can use to check in on the national COVID-19 app.

Businesses required by law to display QR code posters include pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés, hotels, museums, cinemas and amusement arcades and close contact services such as hairdressers, barbershops and tailors.

Council facilities such as community centres, libraries and village halls are also covered as are places of worship, community organisations with a physical location and events taking place at a specific location.

All of these businesses and organisations need to use the Government’s simple process to create a unique QR code required for their premises. Visitors can then scan the QR code with the COVID-19 app when they enter the premises, as part of the drive to trace and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

To create their QR code poster, business owners and managers should visit www.gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster and follow the instructions.

To complete the process, they will need their email address, the physical address of each location plus an email address and phone number for the manager of each.

Applicants will receive their QR code poster or posters by email soon after submitting their information. They should then print the poster and display it prominently where visitors can see it upon arrival.

Businesses without a printer should show the QR code on a display screen, such as a TV or tablet, making sure it’s within reach so that visitors can scan it with their mobile phones.

Supermarkets, where customers generally move around the space rather than congregate, and are expected, by law, to wear face coverings, are not required to display QR code posters.

Cllr Paulette Lappin Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Regulatory, Compliance and Corporate Services said:

“Creating these Test & Trace QR code posters is a vital, yet incredibly simple way of helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection and we need the businesses across Sefton displaying them now.

“Displaying posters, will be protecting Sefton’s businesses and their customers by enabling them to receive important public health messages and keep a digital diary of the places they've visited.”

A couple of flaws in all this, if you haven't got a printer use a screen but if you don't have a screen and the means to display the code or even the space to site one which will be a big problem in many small businesses what happens, also the QR code will be unreadable if printed on many cheap and cheerful printers particularly after a couple of days in the sun.
Why should big supermarkets be exempt, they are the places that you will probably be in contact with people have they told the Govt that it is too much Faff.
It also assumes that everybody has a smart phone, are we to be banned from going out if we don't have one or is Santa Sunak coming down our chimneys with an Apple each?