The Education Secretary has argued for slashing the Covid self-isolation period to five days due to staffing shortages in critical workplaces.
Nadhim Zahawi said shortening the period from seven days would "certainly help" reduce pressures on the workforce, the Mirror reports.
It comes after schools and other key sectors have reported staffing issues as Covid cases rise - 146,390 cases were reported in the UK on Saturday.
Furthermore, the Covid death toll passed 150,000 this week.
Mr Zahawi is the first Cabinet minister to publicly back cutting down the isolation period.
It echoes a similar programme in the United States which has been applied to asymptomatic cases.
He also told Sky News that the UK would likely be living with Covid for the next 10 years.
Mr Zahawi added that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is reviewing cutting down the isolation period for asymptomatic cases as well as for people who are vaccinated or tested negative on lateral flow tests for two days in a row.
But the UKHSA has claimed the move could be "counterproductive" due to the fact that people leaving isolation may still be infectious, actually worsening the staff shortage situation.
Mr Zahawi told Sky's Trevor Phillips on Sunday the review needed to happen "as soon as possible".
He added: "It would certainly help mitigate some of the pressures on schools, on critical workforce and others.
"But I would absolutely be driven by advice from the experts, the scientists, on whether we should move to five days from seven days.
"What you don't want is to create the wrong outcome by higher levels of infection."
"I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic, and then deal with this however long it remains with us, whether that's five, six, seven, 10 years."
He also noted that more school staff will end up off work from isolation because of the rise of Covid infections at the start of the new term.
He told the BBC that staff absenteeism was around 8.5 per cent last week, noting that it "will increase, no doubt, because now schools are back we're going to see an increase in infection rates".
Some schools have had to remain open despite having up to 40 per cent of staff absent.
Mr Zahawi added: ""I have to have contingency plans for 10, 15, 20, 25% absenteeism because Omicron is far more infectious."
He also insisted that no plans are in place yet to get rid of the free provision of lateral flow tests.
Despite this, the government's Covid winter plan which was published September stated that businesses and individuals would be expected to foot the bill "at a later stage".
The Education Committee chairman, Robert Halfon, reacted positively to Mr Zahawi's calls - he said it would allow hundreds of more teachers and support staff to go back to schools.
He tweeted: "Good that [Zahawi] now joining calls for Government/UKHSA/ NHS to reduce self-isolation quarantine for teachers & support staff from seven days to five, if clear of coronavirus."
The UKHSA said in a statement earlier this month that it was difficult to compare the US and the UK.
This is because in the US, the isolation period begins at a positive test, whereas in the UK it begins from the day symptoms began.
It said: "Our modelling suggests that 10-30% of people will still be infectious on day 6, depending on how soon after developing symptoms they received their PCR or LFD test result and the result of their LFD on that day.
"Therefore, our current assessment is that shortening the isolation period further beyond the current 7 days (including end of isolation assurance testing) would be counterproductive. In some settings, such as hospitals, it could actually worsen staff shortages if it led to more people being infected."
