The government is planning to scrap isolation requirements for people testing positive with Covid-19, it is being reported.
This would mean that people would no longer need to isolate at home if they tested positive for the virus, in a huge break from rules that have been put in place since the start of the pandemic.
Instead, the virus will be treated the same as other diseases – such as flu – as part of new plans from ministers, which look to scrap the test and trace system, free lateral flow tests, and the law that requires people to isolate inside in a bid to ‘get back to normality’.
As reported in the Telegraph, the so-called Operation Rampdown would also see the £500 government support paid to low earners to help them isolate cut.
Government insiders, however, have stressed that nothing will change until next year – with the current focus seeming to be on encouraging people to get their flu and booster shots.
The reports come via leaked official papers seen by the Mail on Sunday, in which 160 pages of papers outline government plans to end self-isolation rules in England by spring.
In the documents, officials from Whitehall claim the virus will become endemic and that the legal requirement for those with a positive Covid test to self isolate for 10 days – which currently expires in March – will not be renewed.
One document said: “We will no longer be prioritising the previous objectives of breaking chains of transmission at all costs.”
It is expected that instead the fight will now be taken to local authorities, as opposed to the national response seen previously.
The strategy, created as part of a six-week review by the UK Health Security Agency to look towards life next spring, makes it clear the government is keen to take itself off a Covid war footing.
Elsewhere, a report in the Sunday TImes says that the government is expected to announce today (Monday 15, November) that booster shots will be extended to the under-50s in a bid to increase the nation’s immunity to the virus over the winter months.
