蜜芽传媒

England has become the latest country to announce the imminent end of laws governing public freedoms and restrictions during the Covid pandemic.聽From Thursday, for example, people will no longer be legally required to isolate after a positive test.聽Instead, the British government says it's urging them to exercise personal responsibility.聽England joins Norway and Denmark in trying this sort of approach, made possible, the politicians say, because of mass vaccinations and improved treatments against the disease.

David Heymann, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explains that governments are shifting risk assessment from the authorities to individuals, as people do for other other illnesses such as flu.

He says that these kinds of decisions are based on evidence that suggests coronavirus will become endemic, and that populations will learn to live with the risk from the disease, with vaccine development responding to the emergence of new variants. He stresses the need for everyone to be vaccinated and for these to be distributed throughout the world, to prevent serious illness and hospitalisation, and also, as seems likely, to protect people against long Covid.

Photo: A line of people facing in the same direction Credit: Getty Images

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