Professor Tim Spector, who runs the Zoe app Covid study at King’s College London, said relaxing coronavirus rules is a political statement intended to show that Britain is the first country moving out of the pandemic.
He told Times Radio: “This is more a political type of statement rather than a scientific one, and 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 “and we’re still close to where we were on January 1 and that peak we had”.
He added: “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.
“So, other countries might be doing this, but they have a much stronger public health message and a much better-educated public about the pandemic which we lack here in this country.”
Professor Tim Spector, who runs the Zoe app Covid study at King’s College London, said other countries will stick with four or five days of isolation.
“They won’t be saying to everyone ‘Don’t bother, just go and infect your workmates’, which seems crazy,” he told Times Radio.
Asked if Boris Johnson’s announcement was “an act of irresponsibility”, he said: “I think it is… giving the impression that Britain, that the UK, has beaten Covid, I think it’s totally the wrong way to do it.”
