‘Living With Covid’: England Ditches Remaining Covid Restrictions, Including Self-Isolating When Positive

England lifted all remaining restrictions on Thursday and will dismantle its free Covid testing system by April, as the government pushes people to start living with Covid and return to normal.

People who test positive for Covid-19 in England will no longer be obliged to self isolated, though they are encouraged to do so.

Workers will no longer be required to tell their employers they have tested positive for Covid, routine contact tracing will end and unvaccinated contacts of those who have tested positive will no longer need to be isolated.

A raft of financial support, including support payments for people self-isolating and enhanced statutory sick pay, will also come to an end.

In a statement to Parliament, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was time for the country to move from government restrictions to personal responsibility when managing the virus.

Legal restrictions will end in Scotland by mid March, have already ended in Northern Ireland and will not be lifted in Wales.

England is joining a growing list of countries that are lifting restrictions on travel and preparing to live with the virus. Even though the number of hospitalizations and deaths have been partially decoupled from high case rates, experts warn that even stable diseases can exact a devastating toll. Johnson notes that Covid is not yet stable and that there is a chance for new variant and new outbreak.

$21 billion. Johnson said the country's testing, tracing and isolation budget cost in the 2020-2021 financial year. At the height of the omicron wave, it cost over $2 billion to maintain. Johnson said the cost must now be scaled back. The country's public health agency lead said that the cost of testing was no longer worth it.

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