The campaign to beat the pandemic

Covid is not over – here are the key demands to fight for now

The UK Government has recklessly removed the remaining protections from Covid-19 infection and is allowing the virus to spread through the population.

From 24 February 2022 the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test was removed, the Test and Trace Support Payment Scheme was ended, as were additional local authority powers to tackle Covid-19.

From 24 March Covid-19 provisions within the Statutory Sick Pay and Employment and Support Allowance regulations will end.

From 1 April the Government will no longer provide free universal symptomatic and asymptomatic testing for the general public in England; and the health and safety requirement for every employer to explicitly consider Covid-19 in their risk assessments will be removed.

We are being made to believe that the pandemic is over and that everything can now return to ‘normal’.

Zero Covid UK opposes the Government’s line. Vaccines on their own are not enough. We must continue to have a Vaccines Plus approach – vaccination plus mitigation and protection.

Our immediate demands are:

• Keep free mass testing
• Keep self-isolation for those who test positive
• Keep mask wearing mandates on public transport, shops and indoor venues
• Keep contact tracing – fund local authorities to take that on
• Pay increased sick pay from day 1 of illness and keep £500 covid grant – all the more essential if paying for increased heating at home
• Demand covid-safe places across hospitality, all workplaces, schools and colleges – including good ventilation and social distancing
• Provide the NHS and local authorities and other social care providers with the emergency funding and resources they so desperately need
• Vaccinate children – agreed but not happening
• Resource research and treatment of Long Covid

More details about Zero Covid’s positions can be found here: /about-us/

The war in Ukraine has taken Covid out of the headlines. But pandemics thrive on war. Covid has not gone away.