The Prime Minister is facing pressure to stave off an NHS staffing crisis by reducing the coronavirus self-isolation period to five days. The Times has more.
Health service chiefs warned that staff absences caused by the requirement to isolate for seven days after a positive test risked causing a bigger problem than the number of Covid-19 patients being admitted to hospitals.
Scientists, health professionals, hospitality chiefs and Conservative MPs have urged the government to copy the US, which has cut the self-isolation period to five days. Last week Johnson’s government reduced it from ten to seven days.
Up to 800,000 people are estimated to be in isolation, causing widespread disruption to public services from bin collections to rail services and to businesses across the country.
The number of people going into isolation is growing, with another daily record of 117,093 cases in England yesterday. Wales recorded 12,378 new infections, adding up to a new UK daily record of 129,471, even though Scotland and Northern Ireland were yet to report their figures.
There are fears that schools will face a chaotic start to term next week if infection rates continue to rise.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the isolation period in Britain would have to be cut further. He said Covid would become “effectively just another cause of the common cold”, telling the BBC: “We’re going to have to let people who are positive go about their normal lives as they would do with any other cold.
“I think the whole issue of how long are we going to be able to allow people to self-isolate if they’re positive is going to have to be discussed fairly soon, because I think this is a disease that’s not going away.”
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