June 24, 2022 5.00 pm This story is over 21 months old

Sir Jonathan Van-Tam says he no longer wears a face mask

COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the UK

Jonathan Van-Tam. | Photo: ULHT

England’s former deputy chief medical officer Sir Jonathan Van-Tam said he no longer wears a face mask despite COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in the UK.

Although face mask restrictions have eased, some people still choose to wear them at a time when the number of people testing positive in England has risen by 29.1% (83,331 people) in the last seven days.

The total number of cases in Lincolnshire stands at 234,857. according to the latest government data.

According to the COVID dashboard the county’s seven day average for cases has tripled from a low of 49.1 per 100,000 population on May 28 to 149.6 on June 15. Incomplete data for June 19-21 also shows cases to be above the 200 a day level in Lincolnshire.

Van-Tam stepped down from his government post at the end of march to take on a new job at the University of Nottingham, where he is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Van-Tam, who was named The Lincolnite Person of the Year in 2020, still gets asked for his medical expertise and in an interview with BBC he said: “I don’t wear a face covering but if there were circumstances where I felt it was a really closed environment with very high crowding and very intense social interaction then those are the situations where I might think ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ and I think people have got to learn to frame those risks for themselves.”