More key workers to escape Covid isolation rules, Boris Johnson says

Health service and care home workers given permission to skip self-isolation

More types of key workers will be granted exemptions from the requirement to self-isolate if they are suspected of having coronavirus, Boris Johnson has said.

In a press conference on Monday afternoon the prime minister hinted that fully vaccinated people working in transport, food and medicine supply, the power grid, and other utilities like water would be granted exemptions.

People doing jobs involved the “defence of the realm” including immigration control could also no longer have to self-isolate if they have been doubled jabbed.

It comes after health service and care home workers were given the green light to skip self-isolation so they could attend work, with concerns about staff shortages.

Under the rule change, any frontline health and social care workers can skip self-isolation if they have been fully vaccinated their absence would be detrimental to patient care. Each worker’s attendance would have to pass a risk assessment.

The prime minister said the forthcoming list of exemptions for workers in other professions and trades would be “named” and “very small” and that everyone else would have to comply with self-isolation requirements “for now”.

The sharp rise in Covid case numbers resulted in more than half a million people being “pinged” by the NHS app after coming into close contact with someone with Covid-19 in the week to 7 July, according to the latest figures.

39,950 people a day are testing positive for Covid-19, according to government numbers released on Monday. The figure for the last seven days is 322,170, up 41.2 per cent from the previous seven days. Around one in every 250 people has currently tested positive for the virus.

There were 296 deaths in the last seven days, also up 48 per cent on the previous seven days – though this is well below the peak of winter wave in which over 1,000 people died a day for a protracted period.

Mr Johnson himself is self-isolating at his country retreat in Buckinghamshire after he was contact traced because of his proximity to Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who tested positive for Covid-19.

“I want to assure you that we will protect crucial services including the staffing of our hospitals and our, our care homes and supplies of food, water, electricity and medicines, the running of our trains, the protection of our borders, the defence of our realm: by making sure that a small number – a very small number – of named, fully vaccinated, critical workers are able to leave their isolation solely for the work that I have described,” the prime minister told reporters.

“For the vast majority of us, myself included, we do need to stick with the system for now. And course, the only reason that we’re able to open up in this way, at all, is that we vaccinated such a large proportion of the population, and at such speed. It is phenomenal that every adult in this country has now been offered a first dose.”

Some services and businesses have faced shortages of labour as the sky-rocketing number of infections across the country leads to a surge in people being asked to self-isolate.

The brewery Greene King says it has closed 33 pubs after huge swathes of staff were ordered to stay at home. Nick Mackenzie, the company’s chief executive, told BBC Radio 4'sToday programme: “This is a problem and I think it could get worse. It is disruptive to the business.”

Mr Mackenzie added: “Across the industry we think it is about one in five of our team members who have been affected by this and therefore it is causing a real issue for us setting up business on a daily basis – we're having to have shortened hours in some circumstances.”

Meanwhile Slug and Lettuce owner Stonegate said 1,000 of its employees are not available for work and 15 of its bars are closed.

Some railway services across the UK have also been cancelled, including on the London Underground.