Fully vaccinated people in England will be free from having to self-isolate if having had contact with a covid-positive case from next week, but they will be asked to wear a mask, limit social interactions, and take a PCR test.
In a statement from the Department of Health and Social Care published on Wednesday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed that from Monday, August 16th, Britons who have had their second vaccine at least two weeks ago would no longer have to self-isolate for ten days if they are notified that they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for the Chinese virus.
They will instead be asked to take a home test for the virus, with the statement continuing: “As double jabbed people identified as close contacts are still at risk of being infected, people are advised to consider other precautions such as wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces, and limit contact with other people, especially with anyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable. They will not be required to self-isolate while they wait for the results of the PCR test.”
Anyone who tests positive for the virus will still be legally required to quarantine, even if they are double-vaccinated.
Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK’s Heath Security Agency, noted that “Although two doses of vaccine will greatly reduce your own risk of becoming unwell with Covid-19, it is still possible to contract the virus and pass it to others. So if you develop symptoms at any time – vaccinated or not – you should get a test and be very careful in your contact with others until you have received a negative test result.”
Those who are unvaccinated or had their second dose less than two weeks prior to being notified they had been in contact with a case will still need to isolate for ten days.
Government scientists have long claimed that wearing masks would become a permanent fixture of British life, starting in January with England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam predicting that people may “choose” to continue wearing them even if not mandated.
In June, Professor Susan Michie, who sits on the powerful Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said that mask-wearing might continue “long term” to suppress the Chinese virus, and perhaps even “forever”.
When asked how long mask-wearing and social distancing should continue, Mitchie responded: “I think forever to some extent because this isn’t going to be the last pandemic.”
After mask mandates in most situations were ended on July 19th, young people were found to have been the group with the sharpest decline in mask usage, with less than half wearing them in indoor public settings or on public transport.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has since been targeting young people with threats of vaccine passports for nightclubs in a bid to coerce them to be inoculated.
The government is reportedly considering softening the measures to demand vaccine passports only during so-called “Covid surges”, but Conservative MPs have criticised suggestions of any form of domestic vaccine passport as “disproportionate”.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.