Doctors express concern over self-isolation rules to Health Secretary

In the letter seen by the PA news agency, 25 doctors and public health experts asked to see the evidence on which the Government has based its self-isolation guidance. Allyson Pollock, professor of public health at Newcastle University and author of the letter, told PA: “We have written to Matt Hancock to ask him to explain why the guidance NHS England and Public Health England and the Government is putting out is at odds with the WHO guidance on return to work. “There are two big problems the Government is making: the first is to treat this as a huge national epidemic rather than hundreds and thousands of outbreaks which need to be tackled locally. In WHO guidance released on March 17, the international health body advised that confirmed Covid-19 patients should either have two negative tests or wait 14 days before leaving isolation. Dr Nisreen Alwan, associate professor in public health at the University of Southampton, was one of the doctors to sign the letter.