A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 , 2022
BY WILLIAM BOOTH
AND KARLA ADAMlondon — Prime Minister Boris
Johnson on Monday announced
that England would lift all re-
maining covid restrictions — in-
cluding mandatory stay-at-home
orders for the infected — saying it
was time to finally move from
government intervention to per-
sonal responsibility.
It was to be a victory lap for
Johnson, but his message of a
return to near-normalcy was
blunted as he had to begin his
statement to Parliament by offer-
ing get-well wishes to Queen Eliz-
abeth II, who is isolating at Wind-
sor Castle after the palace an-
nounced Sunday that the 95-year-
old monarch had “mild cold like
symptoms” brought on by covid-
19.
Still, it was a signal moment.
After two years of lockdowns,
surging sickness, hospitalizations
and death, Johnson said it was
time to stop restricting “the liber-
ties of the British people.”
“We do not need to pay that
cost anymore,” the prime minis-
ter said. “It is time we got our
confidence back.”
He said that covid was “not
over” and that Britain’s public
health system should remain vigi-
lant for possible future waves of
infection and new variants. But
he declared that the country
would now treat the coronavirus
more like seasonal flu.
“We now have sufficient levels
of immunity to complete the tran-
sition from protecting people
with government interventions
to relying on vaccines and treat-
ments as our first line of defense,”
he said.
At a news conference after-
ward, Johnson said the country
had “emerged from the teeth of
the pandemic,” which he called
“two of the darkest, grimmest
years in our peacetime history.”
Starting on Thursday in Eng-
land, people who test positive for
the coronavirus will no longer be
legally required to isolate at
home.
Union leaders predicted that
people without benefits would
show up to work sick because
they could not afford to stay home
without pay.
The prime minister also an-
nounced that free universal coro-
navirus testing for the general
public will end in England on
April 1 — though the most medi-
cally vulnerable, if they have
symptoms, will still have access to
free tests.
The larger public will be able to
purchase the test kits at pharma-
cies.
The government is also phas-
ing out the test-and-trace pro-
gram administered by the Na-
tional Health Service, a program
that included an app on smart-
phones that would ping if a close
contact was reported to be infect-
ed.
The leader of the opposition
Labour Party, Keir Starmer, chal-
lenged Johnson in Parliament to
explain why isolation rules were
being cast aside now. Over the
past seven days, there have been
309,260 new infections and 1,
deaths reported in the United
Kingdom.
“Living with covid doesn’t
mean just ignoring it,” Starmersaid.
The government’s new strategy
was viewed as premature — even
reckless — by some public health
experts.
Lawrence Young, a professor of
molecular oncology at the Uni-
versity of Warwick, said: “With
1 in 20 people in England infected
with the virus and around a third
of the population not having had
a booster vaccine dose, now is not
the time be abandoning measures
that will keep us all safe.”
Young told science reporters
on Monday, “We need to learn to
live safely with covid and that
means retaining basic surveil-
lance as well as case isolation.”
Johnson said free universal
testing was valuable during the
pandemic but that the cost — at
almost $3 billion in January —
was unsustainable.
Paul Scully, a member of Parlia-
ment in Johnson’s Conservative
Party, did a round of broadcastinterviews on Monday morning,
arguing that the money spent on
testing could go elsewhere, such
as ending the huge backlog of
non-emergency cases at hospi-
tals.
“For every person that is wor-
ried about a test, there may be
another person that’s worried
about a cancer diagnosis, for in-
stance,” Scully told Sky News.
Scrapping the free lateral flow
tests will be a big change to
everyday life in England.
Britain’s National Health Serv-
ice has distributed over 1.7 billion
kits since the start of the pandem-
ic. People can pop down to the
pharmacy or order a pack of
seven tests via home delivery.
Although not a requirement,
many routinely test before they
go to the pub or meet up in large
groups or visit elderly relatives.
People who get covid also test
regularly to track the arc of the
illness.“Flow before you go” has been a
common refrain.
The deployment of vaccines
will continue, with first, second
and booster shots available. In
addition, the government will of-
fer a fourth booster dose, but to a
more limited number of people.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid
said Monday that people age 75
and over, residents of nursing
homes and those who are espe-
cially vulnerable to covid, such as
the immunosuppressed, will be
offered an additional booster vac-
cine shot in the coming months.
Chris Whitty, the government’s
chief medical officer, said he
would still urge people to isolate
if they have the virus, which he
described as “standard public
health advice for a significant and
highly transmissible infection.”
The government’s chief scien-
tific adviser, Patrick Vallance,
said that it was essential to be
able to “ramp up” the whole sys-tem again quickly, as there was
“no guarantee that the next vari-
ant” will be less severe than omi-
cron.
Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland, which make their own
public health rules, will keep
some restrictions in place. Scot-
land’s first minister, Nicola Stur-
geon, is set to give the Scottish
Parliament a covid update Tues-
day.
In an interview Monday, Stur-
geon suggested that Scotland
would be more cautious than
England. She told reporters that
she thought isolation “still has a
part to play” and that free testing
should be reduced in a “phased,
careful” way.
Johnson’s decision to end isola-
tion requirements could shave a
couple of days off the queen’s
withdrawal from public life.
After Buckingham Palace an-
nounced Sunday that the queen
had tested positive for the coro-
navirus, her courtiers said she
expected to continue “light du-
ties” at Windsor Castle over the
coming week.
The palace did not specify what
type of duties the British mon-
arch might partake in — whether,
for instance, she’ll talk to the
British prime minister on
Wednesdays, as she usually does,
or hold meetings with ambassa-
dors via videolink, or read state
papers that she has to approve
and sign.
Some on social media took
umbrage with the Daily Mail’s
front-page story Monday about
Elizabeth working through covid.
The paper’s headline read:
“Queen’s Covid example to all of
us.”
“She’s 95,” was trending on
British Twitter, with some ques-
tioning what kind of “light du-
ties” the queen might be expected
to carry out. Others wondered,
couldn’t her majesty delegate
some chores?
British author Christopher
Snowdon wrote: “Mild cold-like
symptoms and is carrying on
working. She’s 95. If this doesn’t
scream ‘Covid is over’, nothing
does.”
Another post on Twitter read:
“Good heavens. She's 95 and has
covid. Give her a Lemsip and a
duvet and let her watch daytime
telly! Duties can be delegated!”
Lemsip is a popular British
cold and flu remedy.Johnson lays out plan for living with covid as queen r emains in isolation
FRANK AUGSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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