Boris Johnson To Announce "Living With COVID" Plan in UK; Questions Spark as Legal Restrictions End

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of England, is expected to announce the removal of all COVID-19 rules later today.

Following a Cabinet meeting to settle on the final aspects of the country's strategy to "living with covid," he will make a speech in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon. He will also hold a news conference on Monday evening.

Boris Johnson: "Living With Covid" Plan Will Restore Freedoms

The day after it was established that the Queen had tested positive for the virus, he will make his declaration. According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK was one of the worst-affected European countries during the first wave of coronavirus in spring 2020, with more than 183,000 victims having COVID-19 listed on their death certificates.

On Saturday, the government declared that by the end of this week, self-isolation regulations for people who test positive will be lifted. They may be lifted by Thursday, according to some sources.

Johnson will also lay out a timeline for reducing the availability of free coronavirus testing, while older and more susceptible people will still be able to get them. The prime minister said that the UK spent £2 billion on testing in January alone, and that such high spending was unnecessary, Gazette Live reported.

With more than 81 percent of people receiving a booster dose and COVID-19 cases continuing to plummet, Downing Street claimed the vaccination campaign has put England in a "good position to explore eliminating the remaining legal limitations."

What COVID-19 Rules Changes Will be Made in the UK?

As of Thursday, those who test positive for COVID-19 and their close contacts will no longer be forced by law to self-isolate, as the government repeals pandemic rules.

Per Telegraph, the government will still urge them to self-isolate and return to work only after testing negative, but this will no longer be a legal requirement as ministers transfer the burden of proof to personal discretion and responsibility.

In addition, as with other diseases, blanket lockdown regulations would be replaced with a need that local governments handle outbreaks through planning and pre-existing public health authority. Despite the loosening of domestic limitations, travel tests and red tape will continue.

Unvaccinated tourists must still undergo a pre-departure test and pay for a PCR test on or before the second day of their arrival in the UK. To the disappointment of many in the travel industry and Tory MPs who have fought for "frictionless" travel, all travelers - jabbed and unjabbed - will have to continue to fill out the passenger locator form to enter the UK.

Except on the London Underground and other forms of public transportation in the capital, face masks are no longer required. Wearing them in stores is not required by law. Instead, firms and people will be free to choose their own strategy, which implies that businesses, theaters, and stores may still insist that their staff and customers wear them.

To check for the virus, students were previously encouraged to take two lateral flow swabs every week. Delivery of the kits from NHS Test and Trace and the UK Health Security Agency were halted last week, as per Daily Mail.

The termination was only discovered by education leaders on Wednesday. As of yesterday, universities are no longer permitted to distribute their stocks on campus. Officials said the 'living with Covid' plan announced tomorrow would maintain resilience against new versions with continuing surveillance capabilities, according to officials.

It comes after top statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter suggested that the COVID-19 research conducted by the Office for National Statistics should be preserved in some form. The Cambridge University professor, who is also head of the advisory board for the COVID-19 Infection Survey and a non-executive director for the ONS, said that the data were crucial for monitoring people's behavior.