Ladies and Gentlemen, I must say I slightly felt anxious that we would be getting in your way and interrupting all your much more important activities today.
It has been a great pleasure, if I may say so, to meet those of you in different teams here, but also to have a chance just to hear from you your experiences and how you’ve been able to cope over the last year with this appalling pandemic, which has blighted the lives of so many people in this country. The fact that you basically, I suspect, spent seven days a week permanently on this particular battle against this virus is a truly remarkable I think tribute to the effectiveness of the NHS and to the team, the big team, that you have. I’m very glad to see that you have the military as well and the fact that you have been able to deal with this and now we see the numbers going down dramatically, that you have had such a success, of course, with the rollout of the vaccines and the organisation of all that, the sheer logistical planning is remarkable.
I cannot tell you how full of admiration we are, for what it is worth, for your incredible hard work and I can only hope that eventually you will have a chance to see your families again and try to remember who they are! I can imagine how hard it has been for you so thank you, thank you for the remarkable efforts you have been making on behalf of all of us, you make us very proud.
