Boris Johnson’s new Covid plans could cost workers £500 from next week

Workers in England could lose £500 if Boris announces his ‘learn to live with Covid’ plan next week 

Britain’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is expected to face the nation next Monday, February 21, to announce his ‘learn to live with Covid’ plan to remove all the remaining Covid restrictions in England.
If this happens, it will make England the first Western country to totally scrap all of its legal coronavirus rules. Ministers are believed to be deep in discussion on this matter, with the need to self-isolate for five days after testing positive for Covid, being dropped from February 24.
According to The Sun, a Whitehall insider has suggested that part of Mr Johnson’s plan is to axe the current £500 payment being given to workers on low income who lose their livelihood while quarantining.
“It would be abnormal to keep it if we are saying you need to live with Covid like any other illness”, the source is reported to have told the paper. Adding, “Because then people can say – why don’t I get the payment for flu, or whatever, or another illness”.
The payment also includes those self-employed workers unable to work from their homes, and who lose their income as a result of staying off work to isolate. Nothing has been finalised yet, but any decision will have to be signed off next Monday 21 by the Cabinet ministers.
The costs – estimated to be in their billions – involved with the huge infrastructure that has grown in order to deal with the pandemic are known to have set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street.
There is expected to be a massive reduction in the number of free PCR and lateral flow tests handed out, something that The Sun also revealed earlier this week. It is thought that key workers and the vulnerable would not be affected by this action though.
Spending “billions and billions on tests, when the virus is endemic, is hard to justify”, a Whitehall insider allegedly told the paper.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

Comments


    • BERTRAM DAVIES

      18 February 2022 • 11:52

      It really annoys me with the repeated comments if of the costs that have increased as a result of Covid.
      Why dont people realise that the government has NO money it only spends (wastes in many cases) ours!
      The massive cost of covid has got to be paid for and it willbe our children/grandchildren that will have to pick up the bill.
      I would like the government to have enough balls to increase the basic tax rate to 25% but also increase the tax & NI threshold to at least £15000 and possibly £20,000 per annum whilst leaving the higher tax thresholds the same.
      This would take alllow paid out of tax and would achieve the levelling up that Boris wants.
      Everyone wants the Gov to keep picking up the tab.
      Lets get real it has NO money, just OURS!
      Bob Davies

    • M

      18 February 2022 • 23:57

      Pragmatic decision, If not now when?, we all have to be realistic now the Omicron B.1/B.2 strains are not the threat it was initially. Countries across the globe are virtually bankrupt and there is a social and economic need to unlock. Ukraine is the worry now moving forward so lets put this sad affair behind us and allow humanity to move forward.

    Comments are closed.