The UK Government has announced major changes to Covid testing and isolation rules in England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told MPs in the House of Commons it was the UKs vaccination programme success which had allowed restrictions to be eased and said Covid will not "suddenly disappear". He said his government did not believe it was right to restrict people's liberty for longer than necessary.
"We have a population that is protected," he told the Commons. "While the pandemic is not over, we have passed the peak of the Omicron variant," he said saying there is "sufficient levels of immunity to complete the transition from protecting people with government interventions to relying on vaccines and treatments as our first line of defence".
