“Some said it was a mistake – I think it was absolutely the right thing to do.”
The minister went on to say: “We will probably, I hope, without being complacent, be the first major economy in the world to demonstrate how you transition [from] pandemic to endemic using vaccines.”
Scientists have previously warned that Covid is unlikely to ever go away, much like the flu.
But an endemic disease can be controlled through vaccination programmes.
According to the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, endemic diseases are consistently present but limited to a particular region, which makes “the disease spread and rates predictable”.
Scientists have argued that the UK’s past high infections rate make future lockdowns, like the ones seen across Europe, unlikely.