IT was the news we have been all waiting for – that we will be removing the last remaining Covid restrictions in England.
Over the past two years, the Government has put in place rules that once would have seemed unbelievable.
These were emergency measures for a time of crisis, and we made it our mission that they should not be in place for a second longer than needed.
When I came into this role eight months ago, the first thing I said was that we had to learn to live with Covid, because I am fully aware of the disruption that restrictions can bring — from closed businesses to empty classrooms.
The steps we announced yesterday showed just how far we have come.
From Thursday, people will no longer be legally required to self-isolate after a positive test, and we will not be asking fully vaccinated close contacts to test daily for seven days.
This is the same way that we treat other viruses, like flu, relying not on laws, but on people’s personal responsibility and common sense.
We can roll back the rules because we are now in a very different position to when we first started our fight against Covid.
Back then, we knew very little about the virus, and we could not call upon a vaccine to protect ourselves.
So we had to make tough decisions to protect the NHS and the people around us, while we built up the defences that would make us safe.
This was a huge national effort, and it has well and truly paid off.
We were the first country in the world to offer an approved vaccine, and now this country’s vaccination programme has given 140million doses to the British people.
I am so grateful to everyone who has come forward for their jab and everyone who has been working so hard to get them in arms, including the amazing volunteers from the Sun’s Jabs Army.
It is because of you that we have been able to make this huge step forward.
The protection offered by vaccines, and our other scientific defences, has been game-changing.
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It means we can now deal with the virus as part of normal life, instead of through a state of emergency, and try to make tough restrictions a thing of the past.
We have already shown the world that this is possible, and we started this year with the country buzzing with life and open for business — a return to normality that unfortunately many countries cannot yet afford.
But, just as we celebrate this major milestone, we must also remember that Covid is not going away, and it can still cause a threat.
We don’t put in place new rules to respond to flu, but it still puts pressure on the NHS every winter, and we all saw this winter how quickly a new variant can take hold.
Even though we are bringing back freedoms this week, we are also putting in place steps to protect the most vulnerable.
For example, we have accepted expert advice to offer a booster jab to the most vulnerable this spring.
On top of this, although we are ending free testing for most people from April 1, because Omicron is less severe and the fact that so many people have the protection of a jab, we will keep offering testing to those most vulnerable to Covid if they have symptoms.
We will also make sure that anyone else who wants to be able to buy a test will be able to.
Now that we are turning the tide on this virus, I have been able to spend less time in crisis meetings and more time out and about, hearing from people about their experience of health and care. After all, I’m the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, not just for Covid.
Last week, I went out on the road, clocking up more than 1,000 miles, to hear from people face-to-face about what matters to them, as I visited care homes, labs and hospitals all across the country.
Wherever I went, it was clear that there is so much to do to tackle the Covid backlog of appointments and treatments.
Getting on the road to recovery is our top priority, and it makes me even more determined to bring the long-term reforms that the pandemic has shown are urgently needed — like revolutionising the use of new technologies.
After one of the toughest times in the history of this country, we should all be proud of the progress we have made and the fact that we are leading the world out of this pandemic.
