Johnson to spend ‘Freedom Day’ self-isolating after
BORIS Johnson will spend England’s so-called “Freedom Day” self-isolating after being “pinged” by Test and Trace following a meeting with Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who has tested positive for Covid-19.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who also met Mr Javid on Friday, initially tried to get round the requirement to quarantine by saying they would join a workplace testing scheme.
But after accusations of hypocrisy at a time when staff shortages due to people being forced to self-isolate were threatening supply chains, the two men hurriedly agreed to do so.
In a video statement posted on his Twitter feed yesterday, Mr Johnson
said they had “briefly” looked at joining the daily contact testing scheme which is being trialled in the
Cabinet Office and other public and private sector organisations.
However, he added: “It is far more important everybody sticks to the same rules and that’s why I’m going to be self-isolating until July 26.
“I know how frustrating it all is but I really do urge everybody to stick with the programme and take the appropriate course action when you are asked to do so by NHS Test and Trace.”
It means Mr Johnson will be confined to his official country residence at Chequers when most lockdown measures in England are lifted today.
Mr Sunak and Mr Javid will also be out of circulation, marking an inauspicious start to what ministers had hoped would be an “irreversible” end of statutory controls in England.
It came amid renewed warnings from scientists that the UK’s case numbers – already running at more than 50,000 a day – would continue to soar as mandatory social-distancing measures are lifted.
Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling led to the first lockdown in March 2020, said they could reach 200,000 before the current wave of the pandemic finally peaked.
He said that could result in 2,000 hospital admissions a day, leading to “major disruption” and further backlogs in NHS services.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the UK Government was in “chaos” at a time when it needed to maintain public confidence.
“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following don’t apply to them,” he said.