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Covid-19 vaccines ‘may mean avoiding 10 days of self-isolation’

People who have received two injections of Covid-19 and come into contact with someone who has the virus can soon avoid 10 days of self-isolation.

Officials are reportedly considering scrapping the 10-day quarantine period as part of plans to use it in lieu of daily testing.

The Times reports that Health Secretary Matt Hancock will be keen to replace quarantine with a daily test, but the policy will not be approved until Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, is satisfied with the results of a study of 40,000 people. .

This is already happening in the US, Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, told Radio Times, saying: “The CDC changed its guidance some time ago to say that people who received two doses of the vaccine and about 10 to 14 days after the dose. Second, it wasn’t necessary to self-isolate, so I think we’re going in that direction.

“As we have heard over and over again from Chris Whitty and others, this virus is not going to go away.”

Professor Bauld added: “We have to live alongside it, which means we will get infected in the future, so coming into contact with an infected person will always be a possibility.”