Daily Covid stats are reportedly set to be scrapped from April under the Government's plan to live with the virus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already shared plans to drop all remaining coronavirus rules, including the legal requirement to self isolate if you test positive for Covid by March 24.
And a senior Whitehall sources has claimed the daily updates on the number of coronavirus cases, hospitalisations, deaths and other data will be scrapped just weeks later in a report leaked to the i.
Free lateral flow tests are not expected to be dropped until July, but those supporting the rumoured move to ditch Covid stats say the Government also need to push for an end to mass testing.
Free lateral flow tests are not expected to be dropped until July, but those supporting the rumoured move to ditch Covid stats say the Government also need to push for an end to mass testing.
Infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, Professor Paul Hunter told the Mail Online we have to cease Covid stats reporting at some point.
He said April was a good time to stop the reporting and Boris Johnson has also apparently set Easter as the last date the stats will appear in their current form, according to the source.
Mr Johnson said taking the focus of people away from the daily Covid stats will help them "move on with their lives".
Professor Hunter added that the "large majority" of experts believe coronavirus will evolve into a common cold.
He pointed out it's a bit too soon to get rid of daily Covid figures at the moment due to the emergence of the BA.2 variant and high infection rates.
But he believes, come April, numbers of the virus are likely to be "appropriate" to stop doing it. He believes a final decision should be made closer to the time.
Due to a successful vaccination drive, the milder Omicron variant and a build up of natural immunity, the mortality rate of Covid is now 30 times lower than during the second wave of the pandemic, as the Daily Mail revealed.
Now 0.23 per cent of confirmed coronavirus cases in England lead to deaths (before reinfection numbers are included), as the UK Health Security Agency reports. This is still above flu, which has a case-fatality rate of 0.1 per cent.
