Free Covid tests officially ended for millions of people today as England moves to the next stage of ‘living with Covid’. MailOnline has more.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said now was the “right” time to withdraw the universal testing offer and “focus resources” on those who need it most.
He told the nation: “We are one of the most open and free countries in the world now, and that’s because of decisions that we’ve taken as a country.”
The Government website for ordering tests today displayed a message saying free Covid tests are now only available for certain groups. Most people will now have to purchase the swabs from high street stores, where they are available for about £2 each.
Yesterday NHS Test and Trace workers were pictured taking down the around 500 testing sites in the country.
England has ended its offer of free swabs under its plans to ‘live with’ the virus and following pressure from the Treasury over the bill – which ministers claimed cost £2 billion in January at the height of the Omicron wave.
Scotland will end its offer next month, while Wales is to stop handing out the swabs this summer.
Let’s hope it lasts.
Worth reading in full.
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This will sort out the hardcore Kult Kovidians from the go-along-to-get-along covidians.
This could be worth an ‘article’ or ‘subject for discussion’ in The Daily Sceptic?
On top of the electricity and gas bills people are expected to pay fines for not having paid ‘Covid penalties’?
The next stage could be to make people pay for the ‘Covid vaccines’ which they so badly need…
“In the week that the Metropolitan Police issued 20 penalty notices to those who attended lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall, the Mail has discovered that ordinary members of the public are being fined huge sums for failing to pay such penalties, whether deliberately or unwittingly.
The fines are handed out at closed-door hearings on the say-so of a single magistrate — and hundreds of people are receiving them each week.
What is more, they are often not told about the court hearings, making it impossible for them to tell their side of the story or fight the fine.
London magistrates alone have issued more than £1 million in fines for failing to pay Covid fixed-penalty notices, issued for ignoring lockdowns, hosting or attending parties and not wearing masks.
The vast majority of these prosecutions are determined through what is called a Single Justice Procedure (SJP), in… Read more »
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Thanks……very useful!
That Sajid Javid hasn’t realised that we should have only ever tested “those who need it” says a lot of the lack of intelligence and critical thinking of our MPOs and ministers, and their complete denial of all the evidence in their policy-making.
Please do an article on the continued covid restrictions all affecting people who are powerless – hospital visiting restrictions, mask wearing in all medical situations, including physios, audiologists (deaf people who need to lip read), universities, homes for any disabled and elderly people – terrible restrictions, driving instructors , prisons? I am sure there are others but this has to be brought out that these institutions are using covid restrictions to fail in their services to the public.
The government are likely quite relaxed about such restrictions still in place….keeps the flame of a ‘pandemic’ flickering on a low light. Yes…an article from DS calling these practices out would be a start.
About bloody time too.
Should never have been started in the first place, only catered to the covidians and fear mongering.
Watch the case rates plummet.
So the now want to charge you for labelling you ‘sick’ under the false pretences of their ‘fake’ tests?
Just another ‘scam’ against the people? It just gets better!
Ah, good. Perhaps we’ll get our garden waste bins emptied at last; the local authority has had to suspend collections for the past 3 weeks because, you know, covid is affecting their crews. So many positive tests….as far as I know, not obligatory for the binmen!
Entirely coincidental that we’ve been having lovely weather, I’m sure.
Or that orange juice can give a positive test result, allegedly.
Then you dump your waste in the gardens of the town councillors.
It is the only language they understand.
Or all over their desks at the town hall.
You’re full of helpful advice.
Even though you don’t appear to have done any of the things you recommend, or, let’s be honest, the slightest thing to challenge the tyranny.
You just dedicate your life to damaging morale.
Bin collection clearly varies as much as GP services.
No problem with either here on the Northants side of the Northants/Rutland border.
Nobody is “Living with Covid” – it’s all made up.
Unfortunately we are Living with Javid. That’s the real problem.
If it is the war of all against all, which is perfectly expressed in the algorithms and formulas of our masters then it really will come to all of us fighting each other while they get away with it. Maybe a time is coming where we recognise each other.
‘Cases’ will plumet. I wonder if this is why UKHSA will cease to publish data, because even the most dense in our population might twig we have lived through a Testademic, an artefact of the induced hysteria?
Can’t you see the sort of economic trail that this process is a part of. It isn’t difficult it is sadly an expression of a collective will in western countries. In occultism there is the idea of egregores or thought forms. If you are blind to how these things take hold then you will just grasp around for lame explanations. Because in the coming weeks they are going to become more desperate and more absurd. There is an importance to remaining grounded in such times and you won’t be able to do that without giving an opening to the heart and the spirit.
They are not and never have been free. They are paid for by the long-suffering and ever more put-upon taxpayer.
This will, hopefully, mean that a lot fewer tests will be carried out hence there will be a big fall in “cases”. Fewer cases will mean less fearmongering and less demand for tests. A virtuous circle.
I have built up a stockpile. I test and test until I get a false positive and then I sit in the corner and shit myself and wait for death.
The fortitude on display by the people of this country in “living with covid” is beyond measurable.
Astounded I am. Astounded.
The economic impact from covid scam will begin to register with the masses today. The manufactured war in Ukraine can only take part responsibility for the financial collapse. The “free” dodgy test crap itself has cost the tax payer a fortune.
I’m afraid the gullible will blame it on the bad Russian. And maybe the orange American. Some of them will still believe it’s all because of Thatcher.
“Why are bills going up? Bills are going up because the energy price cap – the maximum price suppliers in England, Wales and Scotland can charge households – is being raised. Energy firms will be able to increase bills by 54% when the new cap is introduced on Friday 1 April.”
My gas and electricity supplier actually increased my monthly direct debits in advance, based on their estimates using the new prices. Over the last couple of days, their online system has not been very well. I tried to send in my end of March meter values, but it was not possible to access my account with them. No surprise if loads of us tried to do that at the end of March.
Wonder how many testing probes Superdrug sells now or even EBay
My triple jabbed office mate has it again, got that last swap right up there on Tuesday, he has cold symptoms and sounds pretty rough.
I’ve had a headache for 1 day in 2 years, and that could have been down to IBS (although you could replace the B in bowl with the B in my last name, at any point over the last 2 years, in fairness I’ve been very irritable!)
My workmates are in a similar situation. Triple jabbed. All accept they are getting covid. Yet took the jab on the basis it would help etc. What do you do?
At this point they are running out of space to move the goalposts. They are already down to ‘well I’m less likely to die’. Common sense of course dictates that they weren’t going to die of covid anyway, so what they’re really saying is, ‘it’s doing fuck all for me but I’d rather not lose face here’. Unfortunately the government is about to begin (further) obfuscating the data on deaths, I was curious as to their next manoeuvre once the ADE kicks in.
Show compassion?
Just thinking this last 2 years has been the most brilliant planned April Fool prank ever! There’s always been something odd, artificial and off-key about the actions of governments and supranational authorities across the world. It was all a big wind up after all, with Fauci, Farrar, Tedros, Hancock, Johnson, Turdeau, Biden (great cameo), Whitty, Ferguson. All pulled together by the genius of the Gotcha, Noel Edmonds and no doubt those lovable funsters, Ant and Dec. And all our grannies and granddads are going to come out from behind the velvet curtains with guilty smiles and a twinkle in their eyes. How the doctors and nurses at the jab stations will laugh – ‘Gotcha! Fooled you’. And Bill! He’ll be splitting his sides! Elaborate but worth it!
What will they come up with next!
if I get a private pcr test that confirms covid will Spain accept that as proof I had it & recovered so I don’t need a booster for my hols?
F%$& Spain; take yourself and your money to a country that doesn’t require jabs, tests or masks.
eg Iceland Slovenia Hungary Mexico Costa Rica?
Am I getting hotter.
So hot you are at risk of a heart attack.
Well said. Sheep come in many forms 🐑
Sadly these things where organised when fully vaccinated meant something different to what it dies today.
the UK and many other nations no longer require any Covid details for traveler’s, the EU is still intent on treating the uk differently purely because of their animosity over Brexit.
I can’t see Europe changing their position until after Macron is no longer the rolling president of the EU.
This is not a game that you can win by playing it, even if you think you’re cheating.
duplicate
We’re now moving into the persistent-reinfections stage in the vaccinated.
Agreed.
See latest from GVB.
But, they’re going to blame the refuseniks.
They’re never going to blame the miraculous jab.
How long before it gets compulsory?
They have to get rid of the control group, one way or another.
Late autumn, early winter. Prepare accordingly.
Something they will clearly be desperate to hide – perhaps this fact is the real reason why they are shutting down testing.. too many vaxxed people getting well miffed getting the lurgi multiple times.
Just to give you an idea of the tricks they are starting to pull – last week I told you the % of positive tests in the 3x vaxxed was 58%, compared to 12% in unvaxxed. The report of Tuesday 22 March has the numbers at 57% and 15%, which seemed a little odd considering the English stats (3x vaxxed should keep rising). The report from Tuesday 29 March had the numbers at 59% and 15% – but this time a footnote caught my eye – since 22 March the infection stats are including children over the age of 5, prior to last Tuesday the numbers only included children over the age of 12.
The vaxx was approved for the 5-11 group, but it was quietly walked-back pretty much the same week it was launched, so I should think that just about all children in that age group are unvaxxed. So in other words, they have had to fiddle the figures and add a group of… Read more »
Unvaxed and never tested, never will test. Would warp the figures, but I’ll grant you it is a possible reason to stop testing the vaxxed, showing them how unprotected they are. Still “it would have been worse if I hadn’t taken the bat gunk”.
Same here, not vaxxed and never tested. Had 2 different bouts of something, presumably viral, mid-November and just before Christmas, either of which could have been the dreaded lurgi, but I couldn’t be Rsed to do a test.
An older friend of my mum’s (82 I think, and boosted) currently has the lurgi and said exactly that to my mum – ‘thank goodness she was vaxxed, she only had a sniffle’.
They’ve just announced here in NL that they are winding down the gov testing centres, that home tests (we’ve had to pay for those from the beginning) will suffice and it’s up to people to be careful.
Yep!
As predicted by the “real” scientists!
So easy to spend other people’s money, isn’t it? A cool £2 bn.
Can’t wait to see the granular financial forensics on this incontinent spaff-fest.
We won’t? Oh, fair enough.
Pop another Schwab token in the leccie meter, love! It’s locusts for tea.
I wonder how many people’s mortgages or rent could have been paid using this £2bn (one month!!!). Or even, hospitals built?
It’s like the first half of Jack in the Beanstalk without the profitable denouement.
They’re burning 500 lorry loads of PPE a month! Saves on storage costs I suppose, can you make clean green power from burning toxic plastics?
Plastic gets a free environmental “green pass” ( far too much big money in its manufacture!)
Funny how the elderly must be saved from Covid even if it means they have to freeze to death.
I suppose dying of the cold at home helps to “save NHS resources”.
Freezing “keeps them safe”!
No. Freezing preserves them
It would be alot cheaper to give every adult in the country a million £ and let them buy their own tests, vacs etc.
I would spend mine on something else altogether.
Printing money to bust the £ ( just like the dollar) is just part of their digital plan,
I’m trying to come up with a negative, cynical take on this news, but I can’t come up with one.
It’s unequivocally good news. Testing has been one of the scourges of the last 2 years. Good riddance to it, and let’s hope it never comes back.
Try this. Breaking news from a virus………….
When asked for a comment about the two year phoney war, a spokesperson for covid-19, who didn’t want to be named, said “we didn’t ask for this and did our best to mitigate the situation, no one was actually harmed directly by us and no viruses were injured by you, we could talk about this ad infinitum but it’s likely to gravitate towards the subjective, I am quite busy, so let’s call it quits this time”.
Now watch those (suit)cases drop like a stone.
In Finland LFT tests have never been free – people buy them. And they do buy them. My partner bought three, 4 weeks ago, tossed them into the supermarket trolley. I wasn’t very happy about that at all. “Only 9 Euros”, she said – I replied she could have bought two pairs of socks for her granddaughter for 9 Euros, rather than give the Chinese something more to grin about.
It’s non-stop testing here in Finland, and 99-100% face masks. I have made the observation that all those people I have seen in the shops without face masks have been men – make of that what you will, but it is a fact.
They have Bird Flu in the wings ( more dangerous new strain apparently).
The grey turtle in South Wales is desparate to keep this stupidity going for the longest time.
He is just a big zero without it.
Good. Now the lemmings can concentrate on panicking and virtue signalling about other important things – like peanuts on planes!
I would just like it on record that “I support the current thing!”
Here you go, in case you need it.
I’m tempted to get that on a t-shirt, but by the time it arrived I’d most likely be supporting The Previous Thing.
Some fine virtue-signalling going on here:
https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2022/03/heritage-railways-show-solidarity-with-counterparts-in-ukraine.html
So heritage railways are being advised not to run WW2 weekends (which bring in a fair amount of cash) in case “such an event could cause unintended anguish to visitors of Ukrainian heritage”.
Talk about tenuous! And clearly during previous wars (has there been any time since WW2 when there wasn’t a war going on somewhere?) there was no such concern about causing “unintended anguish”.
Free CovidTaxpayer-funded SARS-CoV-2 Tests End as England Moves to Next Stage of‘Living with Covid’‘Flogging the Dead Horse’Something that makes me snigger to myself is when someone coughs or sneezes near you, then says, with a little laugh, “Oh, it’s okay, I haven’t got covid”. I always reply “Well, I don’t care if you have”. They always look shocked that you are not cowering in terror. My response to anyone who indulges in mask/testing/vaccination appreciation is to ask them why they still believe in all the ‘covid bollocks’. I never get an answer, they either change the subject or give me a pitying look. I have never tested for covid, I am proud to say.
This ‘living with Covid’ nonsense needs to stop. Are they lighting us up with this garbage? It is a breathtaking insult to the incalculable number of people who have been affected and are yet to be affected by the arbitrary decrees of this regime. The impact of the dystopian measures on our society and its people has been so great that nothing less than prison for those responsible/involved would be satisfactory, yet these criminals now talk about ‘living with Covid’?
These bastards ought to be doing porridge and living with the consequences of their actions.
Yes, and ‘learning to live with Covid’ is even worse. I’ve never needed to learn and have always been quite prepared to live with whatever comes my way.
Were ‘awake’ Germans told to learn to live with Hitler I wonder?
Someone should start an on-line petition about this.
We can all sign and pretend we’ve ‘done something’.
That will show ’em!
Do the people giving ‘downticks’ know that they are as effective as signing on-line petitions?
Two seconds of Hate.
Feels good to have ‘done something’!
‘living with covid’ is baby speak for ‘covid is now endemic’, with symptoms just like the other endemic coronaviruses that cause …. the common cold.
There are going to be those who will struggle to *feel safe* without continual testing of themselves and others. I know some in my family. I just hope they aren’t going to disrupt the workplace with calls for everyone with a sniffle to stay home just in case.
The way things are going there won’t be any workplaces left to go to!
Then perhaps the lockdown fanatics and the maskateers will be satisfied.
They look forward to the ‘free’ ‘National Basic Income’ for watching Netflix.
I think I have compassion fatigue for all those who don’t ‘feel safe’.
Popped into a supermarket to pick up four items today, only had cash so had to queue for a checkout, 1 person ahead of me with a half full trolley, another checkout opens and normally I would have asked politely if I could go in front..but she was masked so didnt ask just moved faster than her, she was most affronted, I did hold back from telling her that due to her moronic status in my eyes she is invisible…. If only.
Likewise, Catee, shoppers still wearing masks have become non-persons to me. There were lots of them in Lidl and Home Bargains in Cheshire this morning…total idiots !
Look straight through them.