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We appreciate everything you, your family and your friends have done over the past two years to protect each other and the West Berkshire community.
With the support you've shown for the vaccination scheme, and following guidance on protecting the whole community, we have all helped to get to the next step of living with Covid-19.
Following the announcement made by the Prime Minister on Monday, we wanted to confirm the key points from the Living with Covid Plan that is now available to view on the gov.uk website.
All domestic legal restrictions relating to Covid will end on 24 February as the country moves to treat Covid as other infectious diseases such as flu.
This means:
- The legal requirement to self-isolate ends. Until 1 April, adults and children who test positive are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for at least five full days. Then continue to follow the guidance until they have received two negative test results on consecutive days.
- From April, the Government will update guidance setting out the ongoing steps that people with Covid-19 should take to be careful and considerate of others, similar to advice on other infectious diseases. This will align with testing changes.
- Self-isolation support payments, national funding for practical support and the medicine delivery service will no longer be available.
- Routine contact tracing ends, including venue check-ins on the NHS Covid-19 app.
- Fully vaccinated adults and those aged under 18 who are close contacts are no longer advised to test daily for seven days. The legal requirement for close contacts who are not fully vaccinated to self-isolate will be removed.
Many people will view these changes with concern, especially if you are clinically vulnerable or are elderly. With this in mind, the NHS will be offering a spring booster vaccination for these groups, and you can find out more here.
We would also recommend that you speak to your GP for further advice on the next steps to ensure that you stay protected and how people can best help you.
Testing will be changing, as will the use of the Covid Pass, from 1 April, the Government will:
- Remove the current guidance on voluntary COVID-status certification in domestic settings and no longer recommend that certain venues use the NHS COVID Pass.
- No longer provide free universal symptomatic and asymptomatic testing for the general public in England.
- Remove every employer's health and safety requirement to consider COVID-19 in their risk assessments explicitly.
With the end of the restrictions this week, ensuring that you are fully vaccinated is more important than ever. However, if you haven't started your vaccination journey, it is never too late to start.
You can book in using the NHS website, call 119 or speak to your GP. They are also there to discuss any concerns you might have or if you want to know about your whole family vaccinations from 5 years and up.
You might be planning for your summer holidays, it is now much easier to travel again, and for your friends and family to visit you here in the UK.
If you'd like to find out what rules apply either visiting other countries, or people coming to visit you, you can find all the information here.
 This is likely to be our last Covid-19 newsletter based on the current situation. However, if you have not already done so, there are plenty of other newsletter topics to sign up to if you want to keep in touch. As well as our weekly residents’ newsletter, we also have themed topics on the environment, business, waste and recycling and more. You can subscribe to more topics here.
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