UK cuts COVID-19 self-isolation period from 14 to 10 days

The self-isolation period stipulated for close contacts of people tested positive for coronavirus will be shortened from 14 to 10 days across the UK from Monday, the country’s chief medical officers announced on Friday.

The change will also apply to people instructed to quarantine after returning from high-risk countries and means people who have been self-isolating for 10 days or more will be able to end their quarantine starting next week.

“Self-isolation is essential to reducing the spread of Covid as it breaks the chains of transmission. After reviewing the evidence, we are now confident that we can reduce the number of days that contacts self-isolate from 14 days to 10 days,” reads the joint statement by the CMOs for England (Chris Whitty), Northern Ireland (Michael McBride), Scotland (Gregor Smith) and Wales (Frank Atherton).

“People who return from countries which are not on the travel corridor list should also self-isolate for 10 days instead of 14 days.

People who test positive should continue to self-isolate for 10 days from onset of symptoms or 10 days from point of taking a positive test if asymptomatic. We urge everyone to self-isolate when appropriate, it will save lives,” they note.

According to the latest data, people are most infectious around the time they first develop symptoms and by day 10, only about 2 per cent will still be capable of passing on the virus to others.

The change in the rules reflects this low risk, which was judged not to justify asking people to self-isolate for longer periods.

The latest change to the rules comes as the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows Covid cases falling in most of England and Northern Ireland. However, in the week until December 5, there were increases in case numbers in London and the east of England.

The government will review whether these areas must be moved from a high alert level of Tier 2 under the current tiered lockdown system to the highest level of Tier 3 when a review is scheduled for next Wednesday.