Both doses can reduce symptomatic infection by almost 80%, he says.
He says: “The odds have shifted in our favour and we can look afresh at many of the measures we have had to put in place”.
From 16 August anyone who is a close contact of a positive case will no longer have to self-isolate if they’ve been fully vaccinated, he says.
If someone gets their second dose just before or just after 16 August they’ll have to wait for two weeks to build up the maximum protection before they can enjoy these new freedoms, he says.
Saying that double jabbed people contacted by NHS Test and Trace to say they’ve been close to someone who has coronavirus will be advised to take a PCR test as soon as possible.
And anyone that tests positive will have to self-isolate whether they have had the jab or not, he says.
“This new approach means we can manage the virus in a way that is proportionate to the pandemic while maintaining the freedoms that are so important to us all,” he adds.
In line with the approach for adults, anyone under the age of 18 who comes in close contact with a positive case will no longer have to self-isolate, he says.
Instead, they will be given advice about whether they should get tested, dependent on their age, and will need to self-isolate only if they test positive.
Responding to Labour, Health Secretary Sajid Javid says “we do expect, for the time being, infections to continue rising,” by July 19, he says it could be 50,000 people testing positive a day.
He says the rules can be relaxed in the UK because of the vaccine, which he describes as a “wall of defence”.
There have been 27,000 new infections in the last 24 hours, he says, but there are just under 2,000 in hospitals. He says the last time infections were that high in daily figures, there were 20,000 people in hospital with the disease.
He says people have been stopped from going to the NHS for routine care because of Covid rules, adding “we have to start easing and moving away from these restrictions”.
