UK Health Minister Says People Must Learn To Live With COVID-19

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2022) UK Health Minister Sajid Javid on Thursday said that people in the UK must learn to live with COVID-19 in the same way they live with the flu, warning that the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 "is not going away."

"COVID is not going away, it's going to be with us for many, many years, perhaps forever, but we need to learn to live with it," Javid told Sky news broadcaster.

He admitted that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest challenge the UK has seen since the Second World War, with at least 150,000 people dying from the disease, but argued that people die of flu as well.

"In a bad flu year, you can sadly lose about 20,000 lives, but we don't shut down our entire country and put in place lots of restrictions to deal with it," Javid added.

According to the health secretary, people need to continue with their lives with sensible, appropriate and proportional measures.

On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of the so-called Plan B implemented in England since December to prevent the spreading of the Omicron variant, meaning that the working from home guidance, the requirement to wear face masks and the use of COVID-19 passports in some settings will be dropped from next week.