People in England will no longer have to self-isolate after testing positive for coronavirus by the end of next week, Downing Street has said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce the decision on Monday, which also applies to close contacts, as he moves to scrap all remaining COVID-19 restrictions.
When he unveils his “living with COVID” plan, he is expected to tell MPs that the vaccine programme, testing and new treatments will be enough to keep the public safe.
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It would be a ‘mistake’ to end free tests
There are reports that the provision of free home-delivered lateral flow tests could also end, but this has yet to be confirmed.
‘We need to learn to live with the virus’
Ahead of the announcement, Mr Johnson said: “COVID will not suddenly disappear, and we need to learn to live with this virus and continue to protect ourselves without restricting our freedoms.
“We’ve built up strong protections against this virus over the past two years through the vaccine rollouts, tests, new treatments, and the best scientific understanding of what this virus can do.
“Thanks to our successful vaccination programme and the sheer magnitude of people who have come forward to be jabbed we are now in a position to set out our plan for living with COVID.”
Asked if the change would mean people could go to work if they had COVID, the PM’s official spokesman previously said “there would be guidance, that would not be what we are recommending”.
Local authorities will have to manage outbreaks using pre-existing public health powers – the same as for other diseases.
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When will COVID be an endemic?
‘Surveillance systems’ to be retained
England will keep “surveillance systems and contingency measures” which will be used “if needed” – such as increased testing capacity or vaccine programmes – to respond to new variants, No 10 said.
Vaccines and other pharmaceutical interventions will be retained as the “first line of defence”.
More than 48 million Britons have had two doses of a COVID-19 jab – about 85% of the population – while more than 37 million have had boosters.
No 10 said this means “government intervention in people’s lives can now finally end”.
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There were reports that state-funded infection sampling could be scrapped but Downing Street appeared to keep the door open to those studies in its pledge to maintain “resilience against future variants with ongoing surveillance capabilities”.
A ‘premature’ decision
Three quarters of NHS leaders in England disagree with scrapping self-isolation, according to a survey by the NHS Confederation.
Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy on COVID-19, did not support the move either.
“I appreciate their concerns about absenteeism… but at the same time, what we know about this virus is that it is not good for people and simply just treating it as though it is a harmless virus we think – that’s myself and colleagues in the World Health Organisation – we think that’s unwise,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association, said the decision is “premature” and “not based on current evidence”.
“It clearly hasn’t been guided by data or done in consultation with the healthcare profession,” he said.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting called on the government to publish the evidence behind the decision so the public “can have faith that it is being made in the national interest”.
“Boris Johnson is declaring victory before the war is over, in an attempt to distract from the police knocking at his door,” he said, referring to the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into apparent lockdown-busting parties held in Downing Street and across Whitehall.