There are no plans to cut the Covid isolation period in England, the Government has said.
Health officials in America have reduced the isolation period from 10 days to five days for people who test positive but are asymptomatic.
The US Centers for Disease Control said most Covid transmissions happen in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.
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But a UK Government minister has said there are 'no current plans' to take a similar decision in this country.
Chloe Smith, minister for disabled people, health and work, told BBC Breakfast: “There are no current plans in England to change that period.
“Of course, we have actually only recently taken it down from 10 to seven, and we want to look at that – we want to make sure that that is working as we believe it ought to.
“We think the current period, therefore, is the right one, so we haven’t any plans to change that further."
Asked about the proposal to cut the isolation period, Labour's work and pensions spokesman Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News: “I think we should always follow the advice of our leading scientists, medical scientists like Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, and I don’t think they’ve given an opinion on this.
"Let’s see what they say on this before rushing into this."
The Minister urged people to 'persevere' with their efforts to book Covid tests after reports of patchy supply.
She said: "Of course, what we’re seeing is increased demand for testing, which is good and sensible because that’s part of people having been cautious, I think, and being sensible around Christmas and around New Year. So, we’re seeing spikes of demand.
"What we’ve done in response to that then is double the delivery capacity – so we’ve taken action to make sure that people can get testing kits delivered to them at home. An additional method to that, of course, is going to a pharmacy.
"I quite understand that people will be wanting to make sure that the testing kits are there – that follows on from people having been doing the right thing in being cautious and in wanting to be tested, perhaps before big events or family gatherings.
“What I would say is to please persevere with either making use of your friendly local pharmacy or using the delivery method on the Gov.uk website.
"Even whilst there have been periods of great demand on that, and every so often we’ve had to replenish the means behind the scenes there, that is happening and the delivery is occurring."
