Earlier this week the Prime Minister unveiled the Government's plans for how England will live with Covid in the future. In his statement to the House of Commons the Prime Minister confirmed that all Covid regulations, including those that mandate lockdown and require people to self-isolate if they test positive, will be scrapped from Thursday 24th February. While the pandemic is not yet over, the UK has now passed the peak of the Omicron wave, with cases falling, hospitalisations in England are now fewer than 10,000, and the link between infection and severe disease has substantially weakened.
Thanks to the extraordinary success of the Government’s vaccination plan, over 71 per cent of all adults are now boosted in England, including 93 per cent of those 70 and over. This amounts to over 38 million people across the UK and over 79,000 in Fareham. Pairing the protection provided to us from vaccinations with the treatments and scientific understanding of the virus, the UK now has sufficient levels of immunity to complete the transition from protecting people with government interventions to relying on vaccines and treatments as a first line of defence.
Throughout the course of the pandemic the UK has continuously played a pivotal role in combatting this disease. The UK was the first country in the world to administer an approved vaccine, and the first European nation to protect half of its population with at least one dose. As England returns to normality and the threat of the virus diminishes, the UK will continue aiding the global fight against coronavirus. Suella was pleased to see that the Prime Minister has confirmed the UK will meet its commitment to donate 100 million vaccine doses by June, as part of the agreement at the UK’s G7 summit to provide a billion doses to vaccinate the world over the next year. The UK will also be hosting a global pandemic preparedness summit next month. This will build on plans to ensure that safe and effective diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines are available within the first 100 days of a future pandemic threat being identified.
Commenting Suella Said:
“The pandemic has come at a huge cost to our economy, liberties and mental well-being. Coronavirus has caused an unquantifiable amount of suffering; we have all had to endure the challenges Covid has thrown at us. With this in mind, I am delighted to see the UK taking this significant step forward. We know that Covid has not gone away, and nor will it anytime soon, but now that we have passed the peak of Omicron and our protection levels are significantly higher, we can start to live normally with Covid. Thanks to the Government’s successful vaccination programme and the many frontline workers and volunteers who stepped up during the pandemic, Covid no longer poses the same threat that it once did.”
