Use your common sense: self-isolating is still essential if you have Covid

‘The disease can still have a nasty bite, especially for those who are unvaccinated or vulnerable.’ Advertising board at Reading station. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Rex/Shutterstock

The prime minister’s pledge to scrap legally enforced isolation for people in England with Covid-19 flies in the face of basic infectious disease management, which tells us to avoid infecting other people when you are infectious. It is a basic public health protection, like others we have in daily life: speed limits on roads, the banning of smoking indoors, and laws against drink driving. These limit our freedoms to a certain extent, but we have accepted that “infringement” in order to have a safer and healthier society.

I agree that we need to get back to “normality” but it’s a question of timing, and now isn’t the right time.