BORIS Johnson has confirmed that ministers are considering reducing the self-isolation period for fully vaccinated people who test positive for Covid in England.
Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to a vaccination clinic in Uxbridge, the Prime Minister said: “There’s a similar argument to be had about the quarantine period – whether to come down from seven days to five days.
“The thing to do is to look at the science. We are looking at that and we will act according to the science.”
It comes after his government cut the self-isolation period to seven days from 10 last month, with Scotland following suit last week.
Speaking yesterday, Scotland's national clinical director Jason Leitch was not confident about changing the rule to five days to help reduce staffing pressures on the NHS and businesses.
Leitch said it is “far too early to make that decision”.
READ MORE: Scottish Government not considering cutting isolation time to five days
He continued: “We’ve only just gone from 10 to seven. We went from 14 to 10 some time ago, now we’ve gone from 10 to seven with quite a lot of extra steps – a couple of tests, vaccination and all those other things to get released if you possibly can – but there’s no suggestion yet that we should move to five.
“They’ve done it in some limited parts of the world but the data suggests that’s a risk, particularly at high levels of infection.
“So we’re not intending to do that.”
Meanwhile, following reports that the UK will end the provision of free lateral flow tests, Johnson insisted the devices would remain free for now.
“We are going to have to make sure we continue to use testing as one of our most important lines of defence for as long as is necessary,” he told journalists.
“The other line of defence in addition to testing is of course getting vaccinated. The boosters are going well. We have now done 36 million boosters – 90% of people over 50 – but clearly there is an opportunity for people who have not been boosted.”
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