The Prime Minister detailed the strategy for England to the Commons late on Monday afternoon after a Cabinet disagreement thought to centre on funding for future surveillance of the virus.
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Sir Keir Starmer labelled Boris Johnson's strategy for living with Covid a “half-baked announcement from a Government paralysed by chaos and incompetence”.
The Prime Minister detailed the strategy for England to the Commons late on Monday afternoon after a Cabinet disagreement thought to centre on funding for future surveillance of the virus.
People who test positive for coronavirus will no longer be legally required to isolate from Thursday, and free universal testing will end in April under Boris Johnson’s plan for “living with Covid”.
Those who receive a positive Covid-19 test will still be advised to stay at home for at least five days, but will not be obliged to under law under the plans subject to parliamentary approval.
Routine contact tracing will also end on Thursday, as will self-isolation payments and the legal obligation for individuals to tell their employers about their requirement to isolate.
Changes to statutory sick pay and employment support allowance designed to help people through the coronavirus pandemic will end on March 24.
People aged 75 and over, the immunosuppressed and those living in care homes will be offered another Covid-19 booster vaccine this spring under the plans.
But free universal testing will be massively scaled back from April 1 and will instead be focused on the most vulnerable, with the UK Health Security Agency set to determine the details, while a degree of asymptomatic testing will continue in the most risky settings such as in social care.
The Labour leader said: “Our plan would see us learn the lessons of the past two years and prepared for new variants. His approach will leave us vulnerable.”
He added: “As a nation there is no doubt we need to move on from Covid. People need to know their liberties are returning and returning for good.
“But this is a half-baked announcement from a Government paralysed by chaos and incompetence. It is not a plan to live well with Covid.”
He continued: “Free tests can’t continue forever, but if you’re 2-1 up with 10 minutes to go you don’t sub off one of your best defenders.”
“All we’ve got today is yet more chaos and disarray. Not enough to prepare us for the new variants which may yet develop. An approach which seems to think that living with Covid means simply ignoring it.
“This morning he couldn’t even persuade his own Health Secretary to agree the plan. So what confidence can the public have that this is the right approach?”
He said the Labour Party does not want to see restrictions in place “for a moment longer than necessary” but said “we have to take the public with us”.
He called on the Government to publish the scientific evidence behind removing the requirement to self-isolate “including the impact on the clinically extremely vulnerable”.
He said the British people will continue to act “responsibly” and “do the right thing” of testing and isolating if positive, but said he can’t understand why the Government is “taking away the tools that will help them to do that”.
