Covid: Self-isolation and all other restrictions to be dropped this month
Self-isolation requirements and all other remaining Covid restrictions will be dropped by the end of this month for England, Boris Johnson has announced.
Johnson told MPs today that the government would soon bring forward a full strategy to deal with the later stages of the pandemic and that all restrictions will be dropped around 24 February.
Covid cases have been steadily declining over the past five weeks, after the peak of the Omicron wave hit in the first few days of January.
While deaths rose during the wave, they did not reach anywhere near the levels of the first two major Covid waves in 2020 and 2021 due to the UK’s take-up of the booster vaccine and Omicron’s decreased severity.
Johnson removed England’s Plan B restrictions imposed in December – working from home advice, mandatory face masks and mandatory Covid passes for large events – and the rest are set to be scrapped earlier than the previously planned 24 March date.
This includes the requirement to self-isolate when testing positive for Covid-19 and requirements
“I can tell the house today, that it is my intention to return on the first day after the half term recess to present our strategy for living with Covid,” Johnson told MPs.
“Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
Speaking to the BBC, medicine professor at the University of East Anglia Paul Hunter said: “I would lean against offering it to this age group for a number of reasons, particularly although you’ve said we’ve seen very high infection rates in children in recent weeks, they’re actually falling really quickly at the moment.
“And we’re seeing fewer than half the cases in this age group even little more than a week ago, so I think in many ways we’re past the point where vaccines are actually going to make much difference.”