BY DARLYNN NAB

People in Sheffield are concerned that the government could be playing a very ‘dangerous gamble’ after the prime minister announced his new ‘Living with COVID plan’.

From the February 24, PM Boris Johnson is set to scrap all remaining legal COVID restrictions in England.

Roanne Nasser, aged 18, from Broomhall, said: “A lot of people have passed away from COVID and that in itself is enough to say that we are not at a stage where we can get rid of the restrictions right now.” 

The ‘living with COVID’ plan includes dropping the legal requirement to self-isolate for 10 days after testing positive.

Sophie Williams, 28, from Sheffield city centre believes that abandoning the legal requirement for people who tested positive to isolate is putting vulnerable people at risk. 

The plan to lift the requirement for anyone positive or asymptomatic to self-isolate for 10 days also applies to the unvaccinated.

Miss Williams said: “If we continue without any restrictions then vulnerable people will die.”

Although not legally required, the government still recommends people who test positive to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for at least five days.

Referring to people who may not be isolating despite a positive result, Miss Nasser added: “We should stay away from them but what rules are there to make sure those measurements are in place?”

After tomorrow, routine contact tracing ends, including venue check-ins on the NHS COVID-19 app. The government reportedly spent £37bn on the NHS testing, tracking and tracing over the past two years.

Roger Stanton, 77, who is a volunteer at the British Heart Foundation, said: “They don’t want to spend any more money keeping people at home and the answer to that is to say ‘let’s all get back to normal as quickly as we can’ but I think it’s a gamble and I don’t agree with the gamble… it kills people.”