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Your support makes all the difference.Prime minister Boris Johnson has laid out the government’s “living with Covid” strategy that will see self-isolation rules and free testing scrapped in England.
From Thursday 24 February, people who receive a positive Covid test will not be obliged under law to self-isolate.
Routine contact tracing, financial support for people on low incomes to self-isolate and the legal obligation for people to tell their employers about their requirement to isolate will also come to an end on Thursday.
In addition, free universal testing will come to an end in April. Johnson acknowledged that another variant of Covid-19 is likely to “cause us trouble”, and that the virus “has not gone away”.
“We’re able to make these changes now because of the vaccines and the high level of immunity and all the other considerations about Omicron that you’ve seen,” he added.
As workers in England come to grips with the new rules, here’s everything you need to know about going to work if you have Covid:
Should I go into work if I test positive for Covid?
There will be no legal requirement for you to self-isolate if you test positive for Covid from Thursday 24 February.
You will also no longer have to inform your employer when you are required to self-isolate.
However, you will still be advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for at least five days if you test positive for the virus.
England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said: “If you had Norovirus we would give exactly the same public health advice. So this is standard public health advice for a significant and highly transmissible infection.”
So if you are able to self-isolate or work from home following a positive Covid test, you should do so.
According to government guidance, you should self-isolate until you have received two negative test results on consecutive days.
Does my vaccination status make a difference?
No, the lifting of self-isolation rules applies to everyone no matter what your vaccination status is.
The government will also no longer ask fully-vaccinated people who are identified as close contacts of a positive case, and those aged under 18, to test daily for seven days.
It will also lift the legal requirement for close contacts who are not fully vaccinated to self-isolate from Thursday 24 February.
Will it be safe to go to work?
From 1 April, the government will remove the legal requirement for every employer to explicitly consider Covid-19 in their health and safety risk assessments.
This is because it wants to “empower businesses to take responsibility” for putting its own measures in place.
Employers will still be urged to consider the needs of employees who are at greater risk from Covid-19 and new public health guidance will be issued from 1 April.
But some experts are concerned about the pressure removing the isolation requirement will have on certain individuals.
Professor Rowland Kao, professor of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, said: “As the requirements to isolate are released (and therefore with no compensation for isolating) and with the expectation that free testing will also be removed, this will likely most impact those who are under the most pressure to work in places where distancing is difficult and therefore potential exposure to infection high.
“They are also individuals most likely to be under financial pressure to continue working if able… However, while it is acknowledged that continued restrictions such as we have now are unsustainable in the long term, releasing all restrictions so quickly does represent a gamble and one that, if it fails, will likely have the most impact on those who are already disadvantaged.”
If you are concerned about going to work after the rules are lifted, you should speak with your employer.
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