Scientists have rounded on Boris Johnson for scrapping all Covid-19 rules as a “political statement” despite sky high infection rates.
The Prime Minister announced on Wednesday England will be the first country in the world to fully end pandemic curbs.
Ending all rules, including the legal requirement to self-isolate will now likely happen on February 24, a month earlier than planned.
Prof Tim Spector, a leading epidemiologist who runs the Zoe Covid study, told Times Radio: “This is more a political type of statement rather than a scientific one.
"I think we have to really look at this in the context, both of politics and science, and also what’s happening, because there is some rationale to this and other countries are doing things similar.
"But it’s clearly a race for the Government to say that Britain is first, Britain is the first to come out of this, Britain has conquered Omicron, our booster programme is world beating etc, etc.
“But I think what they’re relying on is data that is highly disputed scientifically that, really, the UK has come out of this faster and better than anyone else.”
He said hospital admissions and deaths are down but the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Zoe data show the UK is still at more than 200,000 cases a day.
He added: “We’re still close to where we were on January 1 and that peak we had.
“It’s definitely not over, your risk of getting it is huge, and to suddenly give the wrong message... by saying ‘We’re getting rid of all restrictions, if you’ve got an infection don’t bother isolating’, which is sort of implied but not said, that is totally wrong.”
Unusually, the date for the abolition of restrictions was announced in the House of Commons before Prime Minister’s Questions.
Throughout the pandemic any significant changed have been announced at a Downing Street press conference with the PM flanked by Government advisors such as Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.
It is understood they and other scientists were blindsided by the announcement.
Prof Lawrence Young, virologist at Warwick University, said: “Removing the requirement for isolation in the face of high infection levels will inevitably result in increased spread of the virus.
“The real level of current infection is uncertain given increasing use of lateral flow tests and inadequate reporting. This will be further compromised as people will not see the value of testing when they have symptoms or come into contact with infected individuals.
“We need to remain vigilant for the arrival of new variants and not let our guard down. Testing, tracing and virus genome surveillance are vital.
“The pandemic isn’t over and if we’ve learnt anything over the last two years, it’s that the impact and future of Covid-19 remains unpredictable.”
Prof Paul Hunter, leading microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: “The comments from the Prime Minister were quite a surprise
“At some point it is going to be the case that all remaining restrictions are dropped including the need to self-isolate, though I certainly didn’t expect that to happen this month.
“The concern for me remains our more vulnerable people, especially those who for medical reasons may not have responded as well to vaccine as we would have wished.
"There needs to be robust procedures in place to ensure infections in this group are diagnosed early and antivirals are provided within hours of any positive result.”
Mr Johnson amazed MPs by effectively revealing the end of domestic restrictions at the start of PMQs, pledging to make a statement confirming the move when the Commons returns from its half-term break.
He said: “Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
The announcement came as figures showed almost 5,000 fewer people died in England and Wales last month than the five-year average for January.
Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor at Leeds University, said: “Literally blinding ourselves by removing testing and isolation robs us of the most fundamental means of controlling the spread of this virus.”
