Boris Johnson will proclaim that the lifting of all remaining Covid restrictions in England this week marks a “moment of pride” when he unveils the government’s long-term strategy for living with the virus, despite concerns from scientists, health experts and Labour that the move is premature. The legal requirement for anyone with Covid to isolate will be ditched a month earlier than planned, while free PCR and lateral flow tests for everyone will be axed to rein in public spending and attempt to restore people’s confidence that life can return to normality. The tests will reportedly be kept for the over-80s. The national contact tracing service is expected to be wound down and schoolchildren will no longer be told to get tested twice a week. Fresh guidance is expected to be issued, similar to that already published about seasonal flu, designed to let individuals make their own judgments about the risk of catching or transmitting Covid. Following meetings over the weekend the cabinet will be assembled to rubber stamp the plans on Monday before a Commons statement by the prime minister and a press conference in the evening, likely to feature the government’s two leading pandemic advisers, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance. The changes will be announced on Monday and start to come into effect from later in the week. On Sunday Johnson insisted the country was “in a different world” from when the pandemic started and said he wanted to “shift the balance” away from rules to advice for dealing with Covid. He told the BBC that people should still be careful and that coronavirus “remains a dangerous disease” for vulnerable and unvaccinated people, but said it was time “to see our country really getting back on its feet”, with workers going back to their offices “in the normal way”. To prepare for the threat of new variants emerging, it is understood that some measures will be kept in reserve. Health sources suggested these could include lab capacity for sequencing tests and back up contact tracing and mobile testing. So far, 91.4% of those eligible for a vaccine have had their first dose, falling to 85% for the second and 66.1% for the third. Daily case numbers have fallen to around a fifth of the record peak seen at the start of January 2022, while deaths have remained below 200 a day for the past week. Labour argued the move to scrap all remaining Covid restrictions was premature, and accused ministers of wanting to “declare victory before the war is over”. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said Johnson was acting like a football manager whose team was 2-1 up in the closing minutes of a game and decided to take off the best defender. “I’m not clear that the scientific advice supports this,” he said, adding that he stood with those groups who had raised concerns, such as the NHS Confederation, World Health Organization and British Medical Association, “any day of the week and twice on Sunday”. He accused Johnson of having been motivated by “political weakness, not by public health”. Tory MPs welcomed the move, particularly given it would “put daylight between us and the opposition”. However, one critic of the prime minister said it had “been brought forward as a galvanising effort for the party” given the pressure Johnson is under for being investigated by police over parties at No 10 during lockdown. A source claimed no modelling had been commissioned by the government to examine the possible effect on Covid rates of charging for tests. David Spiegelhalter, professor of public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, said there was significant uncertainty about the impact of the plans. “I can see the figures are looking encouraging, but the consequences are very difficult to predict. It may be fine, it may not be,” he said – adding that surveillance of the virus should continue through the Office for National Statistics’ infection survey. Dr Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said Johnson’s plans were the “latest in a long line of reckless policies”. “Keeping some measures in place, including, for example, the requirement to wear masks in indoor spaces and requirements to self-isolate for a few more weeks would be helpful,” he said. “Breaking chains of transmission means there would be fewer people unwell and in hospital, healthcare resources would be freer to address their extensive backlogs, and more people would have received their booster doses thus ensuring they are better protected.” Experts have expressed particular concern about clinically extremely vulnerable people, for whom Covid still poses a more serious risk. The specialist guidance that has been in place for much of the pandemic is not expected to continue. Gemma Peters, chief executive of Blood Cancer UK, said that the government had “deliberately abandoned” this group. Removing free lateral flow tests would “create a massive health inequality” for clinically vulnerable people whose friends, family and colleagues could not afford to take tests before contact, Peters said, while removing the requirement to self-isolate would further ramp up “risk and anxiety”.