Devon’s director of public health is encouraging people to isolate if they have covid, even when legal requirements end in the coming weeks.

The prime minister recently said England’s remaining covid restrictions could be lifted at the end of thr month, earlier than expected, amid ’encouraging trends in the data’.

That would include the legal order to self-isolate following a positive test. Boris Johnson announced his plan for ’living with Covid’ on parliament’s return from recess on Monday.

Speaking at a Team Devon meeting of local authority and health leaders this week, public health director Steve Brown said although they were still waiting for the detail, ’the direction of travel’ means a change in policy about testing and isolation is likely.

However, his message to the public will remain fairly constant when the legal restrictions end.

’If you test positive or you have the symptoms for coronavirus we would absolutely urge people to isolate to reduce the risk of infection and transmission onto others,’ he said.

’Clearly there will be a national policy but our public health messaging, which has remained fairly consistent right from the beginning in terms of public health measures, will remain very high.

’We also need to be very conscious that for a portion of the population who are extremely vulnerable, the idea of people not having to isolate and the reduction of some of those key policies around testing for example, will impact on them negatively and how they live their lives.

’So, freedom day for some is seen as the complete opposite for others, so we’re going to be consistent in our messaging around how we respect one another and recognise that not everybody will be welcoming all the changes.’

Mr Brown urged a degree of caution around the falling covid case numbers in Devon.

He said they only relate to official positive cases reported and that some people choose not to get a test or don’t report a positive one.