at work, it's your employer's responsibility to ensure your health and safety (not the government's, or anyone else's), and it's their responsibility to provide you with any safety or protective equipment to be able to do your job safely (this must be provided free at point of use), and have in place any policies or procedures as deemed necessary.
our company were deemed "key" and a good proportion of us were issued with letters to show to the authorities if ever we were stopped while out and about. the company put a covid-secure policy in place early on, and issued appropriate PPE (including surgical style masks, and the more effective FFP3s where appropriate) and hand sanitiser. in offices where staff were still required to work, hot desking was banned, all desks were screened, entry was conditional on passing a temperature test and a rather inconvenient one-way system was implemented and enforced. in more than 2 years of this regime, we had very few covid cases, and none that could be attributed to conditions at work. Did you know that covid outbreaks within the workplace were RIDDOR reportable (as lost time events)?
I accept that non-whites make up a larger proportion of the population with customer-facing roles and as such, they would be more susceptible, so point taken. so where were their employers' covid secure arrangements and if they did have them, why were they so ineffective?