(Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson confirmed coronavirus rules will end in England, a significant boost to the U.K. prime minister as he announced the first major Western economy to scrap government restrictions relating to the pandemic.

From Thursday, people who have the virus will no longer be legally required to self-isolate, though they will still be advised to stay at home, Johnson said in the House of Commons on Monday. From April 1, the universal and free availability of coronavirus testing will end, he said.

“We will remove all remaining domestic restrictions in law,” Johnson told the House of Commons on Monday. “We will tell people to exercise personal responsibility.”

Johnson’s announcement of the government’s “Living with Covid” plan comes against a backdrop of declining daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths relating to the disease, though critics say he is moving too fast. 

Britain’s leader is also still fighting for his political future amid an ongoing police investigation into alleged rule-breaking parties in Downing Street, and easing the virus rules has been a key demand of the backbenchers upon whom his premiership depends.

Other changes from Thursday include no longer requiring vaccinated contacts of infected people to take tests for seven days, and removing a legal requirement for unvaccinated close contacts to self-isolate.

The U.K. has had more than 161,000 Covid deaths, the second-highest fatality count in Europe after Russia, despite one of the world’s most successful vaccine programs.

Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association Council, told the BBC on Sunday that the timing of the announcement “seems a bit odd,” adding that it’s a “political announcement almost pretending that Covid no longer exists.”

“Living with Covid doesn’t mean that you airbrush the reality that there are still around a thousand people who are dying every week with Covid,” he said. 

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