Britain's Covid response set to be dramatically scaled back early next year. It's part of a secret Whitehall pandemic 'exit strategy' codenamed Rampdown.
The secret Whitehall plan is detailed in official Government documents leaked to The Mail on Sunday. They describe how much of the Government's £37 billion emergency programme for dealing with the virus will be dismantled and the country prepared for living with Covid 'for years to come'.
The extraordinary 160-page dossier includes a string of documents marked 'official sensitive' drawn up by the senior Government officials tasked with winding down Britain's battle against the pandemic.
The file reveals how the Government is set to:
- Axe the legal requirement for those who catch the virus to self-isolate for ten days;
- End free Covid tests and instead allow private companies to charge for lateral flow and PCR tests;
- Shut down the national 'Test and Trace' system, which identifies those who may have been exposed to the virus;
- Focus the fight against Covid on tackling local outbreaks and protecting 'highest risk settings', such as care homes;
- Scrap £500 payments for those on low incomes who must quarantine.
The revelations come as the number of new Covid cases plunged by more than a quarter in just over three weeks - from 52,009 a day to 38,351 - and more than 12 million people have had their booster vaccines.
The leaked Rampdown plans will be hailed by business owners and families exhausted by Britain's two-year battle against the virus.
Professor Robert Dingwall of Nottingham Trent University, one of the UK's leading sociologists and a former Government adviser, said: 'I very much welcome the fact that people are planning for the end of the emergency and the restoration of everyday life. Treating Covid like any other respiratory infection should encourage people to dial down the fear and anxiety that have bedevilled the country for the past couple of years.'
But one Whitehall source has told The Mail on Sunday that some systems for monitoring the spread of the disease have already been shut down, sparking alarm among top Government scientists.
Another source also said large numbers of health experts who have led the fight against the virus for 18 months are 'just walking away' from the Government, resulting in a huge 'loss of knowledge'.
'It's totally over, in the minds of Ministers,' the source said. 'But what happens if a new variant arrives and they have just shut down the whole national infrastructure? Are we retaining enough knowledge from the £37 billion investment over the past two years? I really don't think we are.'
The Rampdown strategy is being hammered out as part of a six-week review of the Government's 'test, trace and isolate regime' by officials at the UK Health Security Agency, a new body headed by former Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries.
The documents reveal that the officials are examining 'what activities can we start ramping down before April?' and what the 'end state' of Britain's response to Covid should be after April.
Their conclusions are due to be finalised by Dr Harries and other key officials this weekend before being submitted to Health Secretary Sajid Javid. It is likely the Government will unveil the plan by the end of the year, unless there is a resurgence of cases caused by an unmanageable new strain of the virus.
Crucially, the documents reveal that Ministers are set to abandon attempts to stop Covid-19 spreading 'at all costs'.
Instead, health officials will judge future policies against the same kind of cost-benefit analysis used to decide whether the NHS can afford expensive new drugs.
'We will no longer be prioritising the previous objectives of breaking chains of transmission at all costs,' one document stated.
Another document, discussed earlier this month, declared the Government will 'end national trace and self-isolation policies' and 'move from whole population approaches to targeting the vulnerable'.
Insiders say the Rampdown strategy was partly being driven by the need to rein in the vast sums being spent on the pandemic.
The controversial Test and Trace service was set up in May 2020 with a whopping £22 billion budget. It received a further £15 billion this year but its funding is expected to be dramatically cut next year.
'Essentially they have to run everything down by the end of March because then the funding has gone,' a source said. Meanwhile, a second major review, codenamed Rising Tide, is drawing up plans for how to respond to any new mutant strain of the virus arriving in the UK.
Ministers will be presented with a list of 'core functions' that will be needed to respond to any future devastating outbreak.
A Government spokesman said last night: 'We have published the autumn and winter plan for managing the response to coronavirus, which remains a serious risk.
'We keep our approach under review, and no decisions have been taken about next year.'
Comment: Considering the fact that governments are never exactly eager to give up on powers they've taken, one has to wonder what this 'rampdown' will actually look like, if it materializes at all.
See also: