Government rejects call to cut isolation to five days as weekly Covid cases reach one million

Business leaders say shorter isolation will ease staff shortages

Boris Johnson’s government has rejected calls to cut the Covid self-isolation period for people in England from seven to five days despite warnings of mass labour shortages.

Business leaders have warned that staff absences could soon wreak havoc for the economy, as the latest figures show more than one million people in the UK have tested for the virus over the past week.

But vaccines minister Maggie Throup said on Tuesday the government would not reduce the isolation time and insisted that plan B measures were “working” to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant.

“We’ve recently reduced it from 10 days to seven,” she told LBC. “At the moment, actually, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to reduce it any further because we will be very concerned that people will still be infectious and be able to pass on the disease.”

Craig Beaumont, head of external affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses, said the UK should heed the example of a five-day period recommended last month by the US national public health authority.

“That’s what’s happening in the US – it is the same science, it is the same variant, we are not public-policy experts but we would urge the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser to make a proper assessment of that and see if it is possible,” he told the Financial Times.

Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland, told the newspaper the chain had already been hit by 1,700 staff absences – calling on isolation to be reduced to five days. “The government needs to amend the isolation policy.”

Hospitality chiefs and Conservative MPs have also called on ministers to reduce the time spent in isolation. The Centre for Economic and Business Research has said cutting it to five days could save the economy £300m in January alone.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he would support cutting the self-isolation period from seven days to five days, so long as the scientific experts recommended it.

The latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency showed that 1,189,985 people in the UK tested positive for Covid between 28 December 2021 and 3 January 2022.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said on Tuesday that the scale of staff absences in the health service is “becoming almost impossible” to handle.

But the head of the body representing trusts told Times Radio there was a “politicised attempt” to suggest that things are not as difficult as they are – warning that decisions on further restrictions “shouldn’t be driven by a kind of political virility symbolism”.

Headteachers have warned that children returning to school in England on Tuesday face disruption to their learning as the Omicron variant of Covid threatens widespread absences of staff and pupils.

Prof Neil Ferguson, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said a rise in Omicron cases in schools can now be expected. “We expect to now see quite high infection levels – of mild infection I should emphasise – in school-aged children,” he told the Today programme.

But Prof Ferguson also suggested Covid cases should start to drop across the UK in the next one to three weeks. “I think I’m cautiously optimistic that infection rates in London in that key 18 to 50 age group, which has been driving the Omicron epidemic, may possibly have plateaued.”

Ms Throup also said the government will take advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) regarding a fourth Covid vaccine dose programme.

It follows a warning from JCVI chair Sir Andrew Pollard that booster jabs to people every six months is not “sustainable” and a fourth dose should not be rolled in the UK until there is more evidence.

Prof Pollard said: “We can’t vaccinate the planet every four to six months. It’s not sustainable or affordable. In the future, we need to target the vulnerable.”

The vaccines minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We take advice from the JCVI. I think what’s important at the moment is for people to get their boosters, and if people haven’t had their first dose or have delayed their second dose to come forward for that.”