British Prime Minister Johnson (centre) has successively cancelled the epidemic prevention regulations, and instead vigorously promoted vaccination and general screening for epidemic prevention.Figure: Flip over from Johnson’s Facebook
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today the policy of “coexisting with the virus”. In addition to continuing to use vaccines as the first-line defense tool, from the 24th, mandatory isolation after diagnosis and contact history tracking, and screening results before entering public places will be canceled. restrictive measures. Johnson said that although it is best for people with confirmed cases to stay at home and not go out easily, after April 1, the government will encourage people to “self-restrain”, even if they have symptoms, just like the attitude towards influenza.
Johnson & Johnson declared in Congress today about the government’s “Coexistence with the Virus” plan that after two years of national efforts, the epidemic prevention should now move from “government restrictions and interventions” to resorting to “personal responsibility”, without losing freedom and maintaining emergency response. Protect yourself and others as you can. Thanks to a successful vaccine policy, Britain remained open despite the Omicron outbreak in the winter, which helped Britain’s economy grow faster than the rest of the Group of Seven (G7) countries last year.
Official data from the UK show that more than 66% of people over the age of 12 in the UK have received three doses of the Wuhan pneumonia vaccine. According to the new regulations, high-risk groups such as those with particularly weak immunity and the elderly over 75 years old can receive the fourth dose at an interval of more than 3 months after the third dose. Johnson & Johnson announced that the government will no longer require people who have been fully vaccinated but have a history of close contact to take daily tests for 7 consecutive days, and will lift the self-isolation requirement for people who have not been fully vaccinated but have a history of close contact.
The UK government provides a large and easily available free rapid screening tool, but this also creates a financial burden. Johnson & Johnson stated that the budget for testing, tracing and isolation in the 2020-2021 financial year exceeded the budget of the Ministry of the Interior for the whole year. The related expenditure in January this year was as high as 2 billion pounds. Therefore, the government decided to “lower the load”, including from April 1. The symptomatic and asymptomatic free inspections for the general public will be cancelled, and only the elderly and other high-risk groups will continue to implement symptomatic free inspections.
In the part of international cooperation to fight the epidemic, Johnson & Johnson mentioned that the UK will fulfill its commitment to donate an additional 100 million doses of vaccines to countries by June this year, in order to achieve the goal of donating 1 billion doses of vaccines to the world within one year set last year. In addition, the government will continue to support relevant domestic research and development efforts and ensure access to various pipelines for new treatments, vaccines and other preventive tools.
Johnson emphasized that the epidemic will not disappear suddenly, so those who expect the epidemic prevention restrictions to not be lifted until the epidemic is completely over are restricting the freedom of the British people for a long time, and his government “does not believe this is the right or necessary course of action. “. “We don’t need to pay the huge cost to our economy, society, mental health and the lives of our children due to the restrictions imposed by the epidemic,” he said. “We don’t need to use the law to force people to think of others.”
The British Prime Minister’s Office pointed out that the Wuhan pneumonia will be regarded as an infectious disease such as influenza, and the government’s epidemic prevention advice to the public will also be handled accordingly, such as ensuring indoor air circulation, wearing masks in crowded or confined spaces, and washing hands frequently. In addition, before April 1, it is best for people with confirmed cases to isolate at home for at least 5 days until the screening results are negative for two consecutive days. The government will successively release new implementation rules for the epidemic prevention policy in the future.