Sage member admits 'real concern' over easing Covid isolation rules

A member of Sage’s modelling subgroup has said he is concerned it is too early for the scrapping of self-isolation rules and free Covid-19 testing expected this week.

Downing Street said Boris Johnson intends to repeal all pandemic regulations that restrict public freedoms in England when he lays out his vision for the future on Monday.

Mr Johnson is expected to tell MPs upon their return from Parliament’s February recess that the vaccine programme, testing and new treatments can be relied upon to keep the public safe.

It comes after ministers said new variants of the virus are expected to follow a similar pattern to Omicron in being more mild than early Covid-19 mutations.

Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), said at some point the restrictions would have to be eased but that “the concern now is that we still have relatively high cases”.

Mr Tildesley said one of his biggest concerns was support for people in low-income jobs to isolate and that there was a “real concern” that getting rid of the rules would lead to more infections in workplaces.

Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “The concern, of course, is with removing testing, removing self-isolation, that may cause quite a big change in behaviour.

“If we lose free testing then a lot of people won’t test any more and without that data that will put us in a much weaker position,” he added.

He said that “in the longer term” we would have to move to a post-Covid phase, but “in the short term we’re not out of the woods yet”.