Frontline ICU doctor says it 'feels like pandemic is over' and backs end to covid isolation

It now "feels like the pandemic is over'', according to a frontline consultant. Backing an end to legal self-isolation, Doctor Richard Cree said it was "obvious" coronavirus has become "far less dangerous".

However the ICU doctor, who has worked in intensive care at Middlesborough's James Cook University Hospital throughout the Covid pandemic, also warned scrapping free Covid tests now would be "premature".

Sharing his first-hand observations, Dr Cree took to his blog - There Are No More Surgeons - to explain his opinions. The doctor also revealed his wife appeared to have recently returned a false positive lateral flow test.

Nicky, who is also a consultant, had gone on to receive a negative PCR test result, as did two of their children who also had mild symptoms, he said. "Not that Nicky and I couldn't have done with seven days of isolation in some respects but to succumb to Covid now would have felt like falling at the final hurdle," he wrote.Following the revelation, he began to consider the likely effects of ending the legal requirement to self-isolate after receiving a positive test result.The consultant supported the axing self-isolation requirements, which the Government is expected to announce next week, adding that admissions to intensive care units were waning and the Omicron variant of the virus was milder.Dr Cree said: "Things have changed and we are in a very different place from where we were just a few months ago."Back then, we were talking about learning to live with a virus that was a serious threat if you were in an at-risk group and/or were unvaccinated.