Boris Johnson will give a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon as he sets out his government’s plan for “living with Covid”.
The prime minister is scheduled to speak in the chamber at around 3.30pm when he is expected to scrap all remaining virus restrictions.
At a Downing Street press conference expected at about 7pm, he will address the nation and confirm the changes, which are likely to include the scrapping of self-isolation for people who test positive and a scaling back of testing to focus on vaccination, particularly among the elderly and vulnerable. Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, will join the prime minister at the briefing.
Earlier on Monday, a cabinet meeting due at 10am where the PM was scheduled to present ministers with the plan was delayed. The surprise move came after ministers had been photographed arriving in Downing Street for the discussions.
The PM was forced to introduce fresh social restrictions to combat the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as it sent cases spiralling towards the end of last year.
He brought back mandatory mask-wearing on public transport and in shops, cinemas, theatres and places of worship in December, asked citizens to work from home where possible and made an NHS Covid Pass or negative lateral flow test a necessary requirement for entry to crowded venues and events involving mass gatherings.
However, Mr Johnson stuck to his guns and refused to impose tighter restrictions in England despite pressure from his scientific advisers to do so in response to the record-breaking rate of infection we saw in the first days of 2022, insisting on 3 January that the “Plan B” measures in place remained the “right” course of action, adding: “The way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path that we’re on.
“We’ll keep everything on the review course we keep all measures under review, but the mixture of things that we’re doing at the moment is I think, the right one.”
The PM reiterated his hope that Britain would be able to “ride out” the assault from Omicron without further measures in a press conference from Downing Street the following Tuesday evening.
That strategy, backed by senior Cabinet ministers keen to safeguard the economy, appears to have paid off, given that the high case numbers failed to translate into the feared wave of mass hospitalisations that could have overwhelmed the NHS.
That said, at least 24 hospital trusts did report suffering “critical incidents” of staff shortages, leading to non-urgent treatments having to be postponed to cope with the crisis.
But overall, the Omicron strain, though highly transmissable, has proven to have a less severe impact on individuals than earlier variants of the virus, with the government’s tactic, of encouraging adults to get vaccine booster jabs as a matter of urgency, paying off.
