Despite daily COVID infections still in the tens of thousands, the UK will end almost all COVID restrictions across England.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that from Thursday this week, the country will move to a new phase of "living with COVID".
This will mean people infected with COVID will no longer be legally required to self-isolate and routine tracing of people's contacts will stop.
Free rapid and PCR tests will also be scrapped, except in the case of older people and for those who are immune compromised.
From April 1, people with COVID-19 symptoms will be encouraged simply to exercise personal responsibility in the same way as those with flu would be encouraged to be considerate of others.
Recently, the UK’s COVID measures have been slowly scaled back, with mandatory face coverings in public places and vaccine passports for bars and restaurants dropped last month.
Mr Johnson said the lifting of restrictions was a "moment of pride" for the country.
But while Mr Johnson's government in Westminster pushes ahead with the changes, authorities in Scotland and Wales are keeping some restrictions in place, meaning that for now, England will be the only part of the UK to end many of the restrictions.
In England, 82.1 per cent of adults have had three doses of the vaccine, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
"We’re in a different world," Mr Johnson said on Sunday.
"I think it is it is important that people should feel confident again and people should feel able to go back to work in the normal way."
But more than 175,000 people have died from COVID in the UK since the pandemic began and the ONS survey suggests that 1.3 million people have prolonged long COVID symptoms from their infections.
Changes may not be based on health advice, warns expert
Several high-profile health experts in the UK have opposed the move by Mr Johnson, believing it is too early to remove so many restrictions.
Anthony Costello, a Professor of Global Health at University College London and a former director at the World Health Organization, said he did not believe the policy shift was informed by the best health advice.
He told the ABC News Daily podcast that the government's scientific advisors have been pushed to the side.
"[The government] want very much to play the whole thing down and spread good news because the Prime Minister needs good news right now," Professor Costello said.
The British Prime Minister made the announcement in the wake of continuing press coverage of parties held at Number 10 Downing Street during the height of lockdowns.
Originally, the plan had been to end the restrictions in England on March 24, but Mr Johnson is bringing that forward by a month.
The announcement took experts like Professor Costello by surprise, given one in 20 people in England are still infected at any given time.
"It's 5 per cent of the population; that's about three million people a week who are thought to have been infected and the death rates are still around 230 per day."
According to Professor Costello, since so-called Freedom Day in July last year, when a number of restrictions were lifted, 30,000 people have died and he said he was worried about another pre-mature declaration that the pandemic is over.
"There is something of an 'out of sight, out of mind' policy here in the UK."
Denmark was the first European nation to remove all restrictions and England lifting of restrictions is also likely to be closely watched by policymakers around the world.
Professor Costello warned the UK could not rely on immunity from the high number of Britons who have had the virus.
"We know that 10 per cent of the infections are reinfections."
"Prince Charles, for example, [was] infected again and many, many others are and this reflects the waning immunity of the virus," Professor Costello noted.
The announcement that restrictions would be scrapped came a day after Buckingham Palace announced Queen Elizabeth II had tested positive for COVID-19.
End of restrictions could leave authorities 'blind'
Stephen Reicher, a professor of social psychology at St Andrews University and a member of the UK SAGE subcommittee advising on behavioural science, is worried about changes to testing in the UK.
"Tests are our eyes and ears in a pandemic, they tell us where infections are, they map new variants and how they are spreading."
"To end free testing before the pandemic is over — and it isn't — would have been like switching off the radar before the Battle of Britain was finished."
Professor Costello agrees that testing is crucial to detect any new variant, which could threaten Britons.
"I hope desperately this is the last variant that we've been through, the worst of the last wave.
"But all the previous variants have appeared as a result of unvaccinated populations.
"The alpha variant came from southern England, the delta from India, the other from southern Africa and the huge problem is that we still have a massive inequity of global vaccination."
Professor Reicher said a looming end to free testing would also mean the virus becomes even more widespread in vulnerable communities, with those unable to afford to test or stay home from work, at the greatest risk.
"More than ever, COVID will become a disease of inequality.
"More than ever, freedom will be restricted to the few"
