All coronavirus laws in England including the legal requirement for people who test positive to isolate are ending today.
The lifting of remaining restrictions on normal life come after Boris Johnson unveiled his ‘Living with Covid Plan’ on on Monday, in which he insisted that vaccines and new treatments can be relied on to keep the public safe.
Those who receive a positive Covid-19 test will still be advised to stay at home for at least five days, but from today will not be obliged to under law.
Meanwhile, public transport users in London will no longer be required to wear face masks.
In a further boost to families, hospitals will also be told to lift visiting restrictions – after it emerged that as many as 20 per cent of trusts still have all routine visits suspended.
According to The Telegraph, new NHS guidance is being drawn up and being sent to healthcare bosses, telling them that visiting guidance is being reviewed in light of the PM’s post-Covid plans.
Routine contact tracing also ends today, as do £500 self-isolation payments and the legal obligation for individuals to tell their employers about their requirement to isolate.
Changes to statutory sick pay and employment support allowance designed to help people through the coronavirus pandemic will end on March 24.
People aged 75 and over, the immunosuppressed and those living in care homes will be offered another Covid-19 booster vaccine this spring under the plans.
Free universal testing will be massively scaled back from April 1 and will instead be focused on the most vulnerable, with the UK Health Security Agency set to determine the details, while asymptomatic testing will continue for social care staff.
In other good news, scientists said that for the first time since last April no new cases of the Delta variant of coronavirus were sequenced in the UK – as the milder Omicron mutation continues to dominate.
Britain’s overall Covid wave is also continuing to fizzle out, with daily cases deaths and hospitalisations all trending downwards, official data showed yesterday.
There were another 39,656 infections recorded over the last 24 hours, marking a fall of a quarter compared to last Wednesday, according to Government dashboard data.
Daily cases have consistently fallen for more than three weeks in a row now, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) weekly infection survey is mirroring that trend.
There were also 164 Covid deaths registered yesterday, which are down 17 per cent from last week.
All coronavirus laws in England including the legal requirement for people who test positive to isolate are ending today. The lifting of remaining restrictions on normal life come after Boris Johnson unveiled his ‘Living with Covid Plan’ on on Monday, in which he insisted that vaccines and new treatments can be relied on to keep the public safe
Hospitals will also be told to lift visiting restrictions – after it emerged that as many as 20 per cent of trusts still have all routine visits suspended
Meanwhile, public transport users in London will no longer be required to wear face masks after Transport for London dropped its ruling saying they were compulsory
The news about the possible lifting of hospital visiting restrictions comes after it was revealed that many hospitals were still restricting visits.
The new guidance being drawn up on Wednesday reportedly said: ‘The visiting guidance is being reviewed in light of the ‘living with Covid-19′ plans and we will be communicating the outcome of this review shortly so that visitors can attend hospitals and healthcare settings in a manner that continues to protect patients and staff.’
According to The Telegraph, the new guidance is expected to tell trusts that they need to be more open with their visiting policies.
Relatives previously reported not being able to see loved ones for weeks at a time, with the isolating negatively affecting patients and their recoveries.
The news about the ending of all legal restrictions was heralded by Health Secretary Sajid Javid, although he struck a note of caution.
He said: ‘This is an important day as we move from rules set by the Government to more personal responsibility.
‘And although we might be done with Covid, Covid is not done with us. It is here to stay so please continue to be sensible as we move forward on the road to recovery.
Transport for London was the last bastion of masks on public transport but it has now dropped the requirement for coverings.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) statisticians estimated there were 2.1million infections on any given day in England in the week up to February 19, down 14 per cent on the 2.4million per day the week before
Boris Johnson hailed a new post-Covid era as he declared that self-isolation laws are being axed from tomorrow and free tests will go from April
It announced that face coverings will stop being a condition of carriage following the ‘shift in the Government’s approach’ towards living with coronavirus.
It added that ‘decreasing infection rates in London’ were also a factor in its decision.
Despite the good news, an Ipsos survey of 1,018 people aged 16-75 found that 46 per cent of those polled believe that the Government is relaxing coronavirus restrictions too quickly, while 39 per cent believe it is about the right time.
The survey found that 49% of people do not support the end of legal self-isolation for those testing positive for Covid, while 33 per cent of those polled do support the end of the legal requirement.
Almost four in 10 Britons surveyed said it is likely they will go to the shops (37 per cent) even if they have tested positive for Covid, and the same proportion of workers feel they would go into work if they were positive.
The survey found that 24 per cent said it is likely they would travel on public transport if they had tested positive, while 20% said they would visit elderly relatives.
More than half of those polled (52 per cent) said it is likely that they would go for a walk outside if they had tested positive for the virus.
Just 29% of those surveyed support the decision to no longer provide free Covid-19 test kits.
The news about the ending of all legal restrictions was heralded by Health Secretary Sajid Javid, although he struck a note of caution
Keiran Pedley, at Ipsos, said: ‘While the public are divided on whether or not this is the right time for the Government to relax Covid-19 restrictions, it’s clear that the decision to stop providing free Covid-19 tests to anyone who requests them is not a popular one.
‘It is notable that British workers are split on whether they would go into work even after testing positive which may have implications for plans to get people back into offices.’
On Monday, England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty said people should still isolate if they have Covid-19 despite the legal requirement ending.
He said it is ‘standard public health advice’ as he warned that while rates are coming down it is ‘still a very common infection’.
Mr Johnson acknowledged there is likely to be another variant that will ’cause us trouble’, saying he did not want people to think ‘there’s some division between the gung ho politicians and the cautious, anxious scientists’.
He said: ‘The most important thing is that – and I hope this is the big take-out from this – the sun is shining but we’re keeping our umbrella.’
But the British Medical Association warned that the ‘living with Covid’ strategy ‘fails to protect those at highest risk of harm from Covid-19, and neglects some of the most vulnerable people in society’.
Groups representing vulnerable individuals also sounded the alarm over the end to isolation laws, with the Scope disability equality charity saying it would usher in a life ‘living with fear’.
Blood Cancer UK warned that the plan ‘will cause huge anxiety among immunocompromised people and leave many of them feeling abandoned’, while the MS Society said the scrapping of free universal testing is ‘not only reckless but dangerous’.
