Anyone who has a cold or the flu should stay at home and self-isolate ‘for a few days’, leading UK scientists Sir Frank Atherton has suugested.
Atherton, who is the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, said the covid crisis should prompt us to “think about how we behave as a society” when people are ill. He added that “we probably need to move to a position” where anyone who has a viral infection quarantines to prevent making other people sick.
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How on earth did we manage before covid (which has remarkably similar symtpms to colds and flu) came along and without all this expert advice?
The Mail Online reports: Current coronavirus rules in England, Wales and Northern Ireland state that anyone who tests positive for Covid-19 must quarantine for a period of seven days.
They can then leave self-isolation if they test negative on days six and seven. It is 10 days in Scotland.
The current surge in Covid cases combined with the self-isolation rules is putting pressure on key services because a significant proportion of the workforce is having to stay at home.
There are growing calls from business leaders and MPs for the Government to cut the self-isolation period to just five days but ministers have so far insisted they are sticking with the seven day rule.
Sir Frank told Times Radio yesterday that the coronavirus crisis should prompt a discussion about how people behave in the future when they have a cold or the flu.
He said: ‘Looking beyond the current wave, even, we need to think about how we behave as a society when we have any of these infections.
Whether it’s flu or the common cold, or coronavirus, we probably need to move to a position where anybody who has a viral infection of that nature self-isolates, whether they’re an adult or a child, for a few days, just to stop it transmitting.’
He suggested that ‘anybody who has a cold’ should stay at home to curb the spread of disease.
He said: ‘I would say anybody who has a cold, or symptoms of a cold – a runny nose, a cough, sneezing, is it really appropriate for you to go on a train or a plane or a bus? You know, stay home, get better.’
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