Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said a list of jobs exempt from isolation rules will be published today.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think it’s a question of applying for this.
“We’re going to be publishing guidance today on who might be exempt.
“We’re looking at different sectors and we will be publishing today the sectors that will be affected.”
He said he would not “pre-empt” the list when asked if the food industry would be on it.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said he was not panicking over supermarket shortages.
Asked about a warning from Iceland managing director Richard Walker, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “He was right to say shoppers shouldn’t be panicking.
“I don’t quite know what he meant that the Government should be panicking, I’m not panicking.”
Ravi Gupta, a Cambridge University professor and member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) advising Government, said there was a “mixed bag of measures which are creating confusion and havoc”.
Asked on Sky News about people deleting the app, he said: “I think it is a little bit difficult to justify people doing self-isolation when in fact we have held huge sporting events with large amounts of transmission that have probably gone undetected.
“So it’s a sort of half-hearted measure that is affecting the lives of many people, many of whom will be depending on their income on a daily basis, and for whom a week of isolation is disastrous.
“This is not a sort of call that I can make, but all I would say is that if this was part of a coherent strategy, where there was national buy-in with the right messaging, I don’t think that this would be such a problem and we could have mitigation measures in place.”
