BRITAIN will remove the legal requirement to self isolate following a positive COVID-19 test from Thursday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday.

“We will remove all remaining domestic restrictions in law. From this Thursday, Feb. 24, we will end the legal requirement to self isolate following a positive test,” Johnson told parliament.

“Until April 1 we will still advise people who test positive to stay at home. But after that, we will encourage people with COVID-19 symptoms to exercise personal responsibility.”

However, leading academics, medics and scientists expressed concern about the move, with many saying it is too early to ease restrictions while so many daily cases and deaths continue to be registered.

More than 1,300 scientists and medics have sent an urgent message to Britain’s top two government medical advisers, England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Officer Professor Patrick Vallance, expressing concern about the government plans to end testing, surveillance surveys and legal isolation of COVID-19 cases.

They called on the two to clarify the scientific advice underpinning the policy decisions.

“The government cannot wave a magic wand and pretend the threat has disappeared entirely,” said Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation.

In what some have speculated could be the last ever Downing Street COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Vallance started on a downbeat tone, with a warning the pandemic is not over and “the virus has got a lot of room to evolve.”

It will continue to do so at a fast pace “probably for the next couple of years” and there is “no guarantee that the next variant is of as reduced severity as Omicron.”

“And we must maintain the ability to get everything going again within a “couple of weeks,” he said.

(SD-Agencies)