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Today, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced that from Thursday 24 February, all remaining domestic Covid-19 restrictions will be scrapped and testing will be scaled back as part of the Living with Covid plan.
This includes removing the legal requirement for self-isolation after a positive test result and ending routine contact tracing.
The announcement comes as the number of people being hospitalised and dying with Covid has significantly dropped, with Ministers saying they expect new variants of the virus to follow a similar pattern to Omicron in being milder than earlier mutations.
For this reason, the government says that the vaccine programme, testing and new treatments will be enough to keep the public safe.
“We need to learn to live with this virus”
On the publication of the new strategy, the Prime Minister, Boris 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.”
Eight in 10 NHS leaders want the public to continue to have free access to Covid-19 tests
As well as scrapping remaining restrictions, Johnson also announced that free PCR and lateral flow tests for the public will be scrapped from 1 April, however, they will still be available for the older population and the most vulnerable.
In a statement, Johnson revealed that Covid testing cost the government £2 billion in January alone, and now, since Omicron causes less severe disease, he says testing is not required at the same level.
Ahead of the report’s publication, the NHS Confederation published the results of a survey which revealed nearly eight in 10 (79%) NHS leaders want the public to continue to have free access to Covid-19 tests, with nine in 10 (94%) wanting free access for key workers to continue.
Furthermore, three quarters (75%) disagreed that now is the right time to change the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive result.
The decision to remove all restrictions “is not based on current evidence and is premature”
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, says that while hospital admissions and deaths are falling and this is allowing the NHS to bring back many routine services that were deprioritised during the pandemic, the government “cannot wave a magic wand and pretend the threat has disappeared entirely”.
“So much is uncertain still, including our long-term immunity and the emergence of future strains, which requires a solid testing infrastructure and clear guidance around self-isolation to remain in place,” he added.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, agrees with NHS leaders and says the decision to remove all restrictions “is not based on current evidence and is premature.”
While he acknowledges we will have to learn to adjust to the reality of Covid-19, he stresses that allowing the infection to spread in an “unmonitored and unfettered manner” will be “damaging to the health of millions, including for those who go on to suffer Long Covid symptoms.”
For this reason, Dr Nagpaul urges the government to continue to provide free testing for the public and keep the legal requirement for the sick to self-isolate in place. Without this, he says, the public will not be protected from illness and surveillance of the disease and its prevalence vanishes.
