Free Covid tests and £500 isolation payments to end

Ministers and health chiefs are meeting this week with a new ‘living with Covid’ strategy to be announced next week
Ross Lydall @RossLydall17 February 2022

An end to free Covid tests and £500 payments to isolate at home for people on low incomes looks set to be announced within days.

Ministers and health chiefs are said to be meeting this week, with a new “living with Covid” strategy to be announced by Downing Street on Monday.

This would potentially restrict the availability of lateral flow tests and scrap the advice for asymptomatic people to test regularly before leaving home.

The Department for Health on Tuesday insisted no decisions had been made but said plans were first published last November, in the Government’s Autumn and Winter Plan, on ending the “universal” provision of lateral flow tests.The Government is currently distributing 90 million lateral flow tests a week. The number of PCR tests has fallen from more than two million a day at the start of January to about 780,000 a day.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics today revealed the total number of deaths, including those involving Covid, was more than nine per cent below average in the first week of February. Of the 1,242 deaths that involved Covid in England and Wales, the total was a sixth of the number recorded in the same week a year ago, when there were 7,320.

According to reports, the Government aim now is to reduce the £15 billion annual bill for testing and isolation payments to about £1.3 billion. More than two billion lateral flow tests have been distributed during the pandemic. The Government’s plan is for individuals and businesses to pay for the tests, though the elderly may continue to qualify for free tests.

PCR tests may no longer be free, except in hospitals and care homes, from March 31. The use of lateral flow tests on days five and six after a positive test, to allow the end of isolation, may be dropped.

The legal requirement to self-isolate was introduced in September 2020 for people testing positive and for close contacts. Failure to follow the rules was a criminal offence, with penalties starting at £1,000. Last week Boris Johnson announced all Covid regulations, including the requirement to isolate after testing positive, would end on February 24 if conditions allow — a month earlier than planned.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in