A health boss has warned the Covid pandemic is not over despite restrictions being relaxed and free public testing coming to an end.

The legal requirement for people to self-isolate if they test positive for Covid was axed a month ago and replaced by guidance to avoid contact with others. From April 1 PCR and lateral flow tests will no longer be free for the general public, although testing will continue places such as hospitals and care homes.

Covid cases have been on the rise again in recent weeks however, as Staffordshire County Council's health scrutiny committee heard at its meeting this month.

Marcus Warnes, Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent CCGs' (Clinical Commissioning Groups') accountable officer, said: "You would think the pandemic is all over and done with bar the shouting. It's not. There is an awful lot of Covid out there.

"And whilst the vaccination programme and people who have recovered from a prior infection gives us high levels of immunity that does wane over time, particularly as people become exposed to new variants. There are a lot of people out there with Covid not getting as ill and not as many requiring medical attention, but we are now for the first time in many months seeing an increase in the number of people either admitted with Covid or testing positive with Covid.

"It is fair to say a lot of them are not in hospital because of Covid. Everyone is tested in hospital so some of those will just have Covid but that's not what they're there for.

"But we had far more people in beds over winter than we had planned for – UHNM had planned for no more than 50 people with Covid in a bed. Those numbers dropped down to just over 100 and they are beginning to increase again.

"It does feel like we're in a fairly fragile position as society opens up, as the remaining restrictions are removed and access to free testing after April 1 disappears. There are some risks there.

"I'm not saying for one minute it will be anything like the problems we had in the previous phases but there are still some residual challenges around the pandemic we continue to battle with."

Newcastle councillor Julie Cooper said: "A lot of people are thinking it's all over and done with, they're going back to what we used to be pre-Covid. How are we going to know which areas have now got Covid if people aren't going to test as they're not going to buy the tests?

"Have we got to wait until it's too late when the hospital is full again? How as the NHS are you monitoring that?

"We've got to sort out where we go from here. It's not gone and it won't be gone for a good while."

Mr Warnes responded: "Not all tests were captured in the national data – even when mandatory testing was freely accessible only PCR tests were uploaded on the Government's statistics. On around one in six lateral flow tests people didn't do what they were asked to do on the box and upload their positive result.

"We were only ever capturing a proportion of the people testing positive. What we tend to put more credence in is the ONS (Office for National Statistics) data. Even when testing stops we will still have a fairly good idea around what rates of Covid are.

"We tend to look more at the number of people seeking medical attention and being admitted to hospital with Covid. That is where the real pressure will be felt.

"Covid cases are reducing but case rates are still very high. There's more people in hospital than we would like to see. Deaths with Covid are around about what you would see in a bad flu season.

"We will be living with Covid but it hasn't gone away and it won't go away. It will be there in the background and we will do our best to manage it."

Committee members heard that Staffordshire County Council's Covid action during 2022-23 will focus on supporting high risk areas such as social care and places visited by people most at risk.

The council's Covid defence lead Emily Doorbar said: "We will monitor and respond at a local level to surges in the community and we will continue our support of the vaccination programme and supporting our health colleagues. We will be retaining our Covid helpline and continuing to provide advice to the public. That will be manned all the way through to March 2023.

"Although case rates have reduced significantly they are starting to rise again. Most notably we're seeing that within the 35-49 age bracket, however it is to be expected as restrictions have been eased."