The other thing is that Matt Hancock is finally talking about Covid as a disease that we'll have to live (or die) with rather than eradicating it totally.
It seems ministers have been too scared to let the (thick) public know this is the reality, though even the scientists at the briefings have been saying this for ages.
I guess, they know the public is stupid, and if they let this out even now, every idiots would simply think oppsit, and disobey all measures. So they need to make out normality* will return in the not too distant future, once they have old'uns jabbed, because the 2 things that the UK public care about is the NHS and deaths of family. Easing up on restrictions now would kill both the NHS and many matriarchal mothers, and the BBC TV News would be wall to wall with council house daughters blaming the authorities for killing their mothers, and how life is no longer worthwhile (I have a great cure for that).
*obviously, a new form of normality, where we live with it, but all the vulnerable will be 80% protected.