Covid isolation set to be SLASHED to 7 days to save Christmas gatherings
SELF-ISOLATION is set to be slashed to seven days in order to save Christmas gatherings and limit damage to the economy.
The current law says that you have to self-isolate for 10 days following the start of your symptoms or a positive test result.
But Health Secretary Sajid Javid is pushing to shorten it to just seven days with lateral flow testing, reported.
As long as the infected person took a rapid at-home test every day, and had a negative result on day seven, it would give them the green-light to freedom.
Advice is expected imminently from government scientists who have been tasked with reviewing the evidence.
The move could come into effect this week - although plans are being finalised.
It could potentially release thousands from self-isolation earlier before Christmas or New Year celebrations, should they go ahead without restrictions from the Government.
It would also reduce pressures on the UK’s workforce, with huge proportions of staff off in isolation due to the Omicron Covid wave.
The British Medical Association has warned as many as 50,000 staff could be struck down with Covid and forced to self-isolate by Christmas Day.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “With reports suggesting there could be 130,000 staff off sick on Christmas Day across mental health, ambulance, community and hospitals services and with bed occupancy currently at 93 per cent, this is increasingly worrying.
"If cases continue to rise at this rapid rate, sadly wide-scale disruption is inevitable.”
With significant shortages across emergency services, ministers are primarily looking at plans to put Brits under new Covid restrictions, such as banning indoor socialising.
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Sage - the scientific advisory group to the Government - say boosters may not be enough to hold back the Omicron tsunami, resulting in thousands of hospitalisations.
The UK is today set to hit nearly 30million people boosted with a third dose – half of the population.
In England, more than two thirds of people aged 18 and over have now received their top up protection, including more than four in five of people aged 50 and over.
WHY CUT SELF-ISOLTATION DOWN?
Prof Neil Ferguson, a senior adviser to the Government on the Sage panel, said research shows it was safe to cut the self-isolation window.
Asked what he thought of changing the rule, the Imperial College London modeller told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday: “I think it's always a tradeoff between effectiveness of those things, and people's adherence to them.
“I think if it could be coupled with lateral flow testing - so testing negative to release, and this was looked at some months ago, even a year ago in terms of these rules - all the modelling and analysis would suggest its not going to reduce the effectiveness of the measures that much.
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“If it's just a simple change of 10 to seven days with no testing, you have a slightly bigger impact on the effectiveness of the measures.”
The self-isolation period was 14 days at the start of the pandemic. But in December 2020, it was reduced to 10 days.
It was discovered that people are most infectious around the time they first develop symptoms.
Fourteen days was not justified because only a tiny proportion of Covid patients would still be capable of passing on the virus to others at the tail end of infection.
“People are most infectious in the first five days, after which time infectiousness falls”, said Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, according to
“Some people are no longer infectious after three days and it makes no sense to keep them locked up.
“Isolating people for ten days when they are no longer infectious will harm the economy and leave vital public services, such as the NHS, short-staffed.
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“People could perhaps take a daily lateral flow test and be allowed to leave quarantine if they test negative for two days in a row.”
It was considered that the time from exposure to the virus and infectiousness was even shorter with Omicron.
Therefore, it may make even less sense to put people into quarantine for several days after the point at which they are contagious.
However, Sage has said in its papers this weekend there was “no evidence” Omicron had a shorter incubation period or that the length of the infectious period with Omicron differs from previous variants.
The Government recently made a change to self-isolation rules to prevent a "winter pingdemic", whereby millions of people are forced into self-isolation on a precautionary basis.
The rules previously stated that people who are contacts of someone with the super-fast spreading Omicron variant have to self-isolate.
But this was scrapped in favour of daily testing over a week.
Already the pressures of Omicron are showing with NHS and hospitality staffing levels plummeting.
Luke Johnson, a serial entrepreneur and chairman of The Bread Factory, said some businesses had ten per cent of their workforce in isolation.
“The vast majority of those isolating aren't sick and most with symptoms say it feels like a cold,” he said.
“Ten days in isolation is too long. The tests are flawed, and asymptomatic spread is unproven.
“This means the economy and indeed the NHS risks grinding to a halt very soon.”
A number of West End theatres have closed their doors pre-Christmas because cast and crew have the virus.
UK Hospitality chief Kate Nicholls said businesses are "stuck in limbo" due to uncertainties.
However, new plans are being drawn up by Whitehall to tackle Omicron, with the country facing an abrupt full-scale lockdown as early as Boxing Day, the Sun revealed.
The PM said he “will rule nothing out” in the fight against Omicron, following a testy two-hour virtual Cabinet meeting on Monday.
The PM said he must “reserve the possibility” of festive restrictions for a second year running. But he warned he ruled nothing out in the coming days if incoming data showed mutant Covid risked overwhelming the NHS.
He said there were still “uncertainties” around the severity of the new strain, as well as the rate of hospital admissions associated with it, and its impact on the effectiveness of the vaccines.
No10 is waiting for new data from Imperial College London, which will shed more light on the severity of Omicron, to arrive tomorrow before making a final call.
At the same time he said Government needed to take account of the economic impact of any new measures.
The next step of England's Covid nightmare could see a ban on indoor mixing, curbs on hospitality such as curfews, or another full-scale lockdown.
Any new legal restrictions would require the recall of MPs to Parliament to vote them through, but Mr Johnson is facing a huge rebellion.
It comes after Sage warned ministers that indoor mixing is the “biggest risk factor” for the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
Minutes from their meetings show the advise given to ministers was of a sombre tone, saying Omicron could not be held back by boosters alone.
It said the ramping up of the programme in recent days would not help the NHS in the near future, due to the delay in building immunity.
Scientists feeding into Sage also said some self-isolation rules should be toughened up.
In a document published Saturday that discusses Covid interventions in light of Omicron, scientists said if only one person gets a positive lateral flow test prior to an event, the whole household shouldn’t go.
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They said “there is a significant chance that others are already infected” if Omicron is already in the home.
But the move could put thousands more people in isolation that don’t need to be.
