Kate Nicholls, fromР’В UK Hospitality, said dropping the quarantine requirements by three days has 'already reduced staff absences in the food supply chain.' Ministers have already squeezed the isolation period to seven days, providing Covid sufferers test negative twice at the end of their week of quarantine. Union bosses have also warned the ultra-transmissible variant's rapid spread has left the NHS and other public sectors in a 'perilous state'.Р”Р„s many as 40 per cent of London's NHS staff could be absent in the 'worst case scenario' envisaged by Professor Alison Leary, chair of health care and workforce modelling at London Southbank University. Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, said eventually Covid-infected people need to be allowed to 'go about their normal lives' as they would with a cold.Р”Р„nd former Tory minister Theresa Villiers said: 'The Government should look seriously at reducing mandatory isolation periods.' He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the swabs are 'quite a good way of marking who is infectious and who isn't'. Up to 800,000 people are thought to be in isolation as the new variantР’В wreaks havoc on businesses throughout Christmas by forcing people to stay at home.Р”В«ut Sir John Bell, an immunologist who has advised the Government on Covid, said Britain could go even further and replicate the US by relying on lateral flow tests. The president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Lord Bilimoria, pointed out that South Africa - where Omicron was first detected - had dropped the requirement to self-isolate altogether for those who are asymptomatic.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have yet to make any changes. The Health Secretary has already reduced quarantine from 10 to seven days in England while in the US it has been cut from 10 days to five for people who are asymptomaticР’В and can wear a mask around people for another five days. Ministers have been urged to cut the Covid isolation period from seven to five days with experts warning that NHS staff shortages pose a bigger threat than rising patient numbers.

Gimp gap 2.9