UK Covid live: easing self-isolation rules will enable more people to spend Christmas with family, minister says

Good morning. In autumn last year Boris Johnson briefly started talking about how mass testing would be the “moonshot” that would provide a path back to normality. At a news conference he said this might help bring life “much closer to normal before Christmas” and a leaked document talked about mass testing delivering 6m tests per day.

At the time this was seen as one of the wilder examples of Johnson’s boosterism, and some of his claims were well off the mark. (At the time Johnson was talking about avoiding a second lockdown; in the event, there were at least two more to come.) But more than a year on some aspects of this vision have materialised. The government is now sending out 900,000 lateral flow kits (with seven tests per kit) per day. They are being very widely used. And last night the government announced that people who test negative with a LFT can reduce their Covid self-isolation period from 10 days to seven. My colleague Andrew Gregory has the details here.

Gillian Keegan, the social care minister, has been giving interviews this morning and she told Times Radio that the new rules would enable some people who would have been isolating on Christmas Day under the old system to spend it with loved ones instead. She explained:

If you work it out, if you were confirmed as positive or first showed symptoms on Saturday, the 18th and now – assuming, you get a negative lateral flow test on day six and day seven – you’ll be able to enjoy your Christmas lunch.

I will post more from her interviews shortly.

Keegan had little to say one the key question for many people: will further restriction be imposed in England after Christmas? In UK terms, England is an outlier because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all either announced tighter Covid rules for the post-Christmas period, or are set to do so. We will be hearing more about what is happening in Wales and Northern Ireland today.

Here is the agenda.

9.30am: The Department for Transport publishes weekly transport usage figures.

11am: The Northern Ireland executive is expected to meet to consider new Covid restrictions. Afterwards Paul Givan, the first minister, and Michelle O’Neill, the deputy first minister, are expected to hold a news conference.

12.15pm: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, holds news conference to announce new Covid restrictions.

1.30pm: Drakeford makes a virtual statement to the Senedd about the new Covid rules for Wales.

I will be mostly covering UK Covid developments here, but for global developments, do read our global live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at [email protected]