Boris Johnson has unveiled his Living with Covid plan including ending self-isolation for people who test positive and an end to free testing.
From Thursday, subject to Parliament’s approval, the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test will be removed.
However, adults and children who test positive will continue to be advised to stay at home and to isolate for at least five days.
Vaccinated contacts of people who test positive will no longer be asked to test for seven days.
The legal requirement for close contacts who are not vaccinated to self-isolate will also go. Routine contact tracing will also end.
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 a degree of asymptomatic testing will continue in the most risky settings such as in social care.
The Department of Health and Social Care will receive no extra money to deliver the testing.
There will also be an end to self-isolation payments and some practical support that comes with it and for the legal obligation for people to tell their employers when they are required to self-isolate.
Town halls will lose powers to shut down areas where there have been big Covid outbreaks.
While on March 24, the Government will remove the Covid provisions on statutory sick pay and Employment Support Allowance.
Opening his speech in Parliament on the loosening of all remaining Covid restrictions, Mr Johnson warned the “pandemic is not over”, with the Queen’s positive test a “reminder this virus has not gone away”.
But he emphasised “personal responsibility” for Covid in future rather than Government restrictions to control it.
The Prime Minister said: “Because of the efforts we have made as a country over the past two years, we can now deal with it in a very different way, moving from Government restrictions to personal responsibility, so we protect ourselves without losing our abilities and maintaining our contingent capabilities so we can respond rapidly to any new variant.”
“It is time that we got our confidence back. We don’t need laws to compel people to be considerate to others. We can rely on that sense of responsibility towards one another,” he added. “So let us learn to live with this virus and continue protecting ourselves and others without restricting our freedoms.”
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has set out a variety of scenarios ranging from a benign outlook where Covid becomes milder to a far more alarming one where a more dangerous mutation emerges.
So under the plan a “strong” domestic surveillance system will be maintained to detect threatening new variants.
The UK Health Security Agency will keep appropriate levels of laboratory infrastructure to boost back up PCR testing if required, and maintain a stockpile of lateral flow tests to surge test if needed.
The ability to ramp back up testing in some settings, for example the NHS, will also be maintained.
Boris Johnson told MPs: “Sage advises there is considerable uncertainty about the future path of pandemic and there may, of course, be significant resurgences. They are certain there will be new variants and it is very possible they will be worse than Omicron.
“So we will maintain our resilience to manage and respond to these risks, including our world-leading ONS survey which will allow us to continue tracking the virus in granular detail, with regional and age breakdowns helping us to spot surges as and where they happen.”
In a press conference later on, Mr Johnson warned the Covid pandemic was not over as he scrapped the rules in England.
“Today is not the day we can declare victory over Covid because this virus is not going away,” he added.
He said the last two years had been the “darkest and grimmest in our peacetime history” but said the public should be proud of its efforts to minimise its effect.
Elsewhere in the No10 press conference, Professor Sir Chris Whitty said the Omicron wave is “still high” in parts of the UK.
He said rates were coming down but it is still a prominent infection.
England’s chief medical officer said he expected there to be new variants in the future, some of which could cause “significant problems”.
He added: “Very we need to be very careful, as the prime minster said.”
The Cabinet was due to sign off on the plan on the Living With Covid stategy on Monday morning but the meeting was pushed back to the afternoon at the last minute.
The delay was understood to centre on Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s demands over how elements would be funded.
Ministers including Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke had already arrived in No 10 before the postponement.
The chaos surrounding the policy, which should help shore up Mr Johnson’s support on the Tory backbenches by ending the remaining legal restrictions in a nation that has lived under measures for nearly two years, came as the PM’s authority was undermined by the partygate scandal.
But No 10 ultimately said the Cabinet gave the strategy its “unanimous backing” after a virtual meeting in the afternoon.
