Hopes for a return to normality have risen, 23 months after the country’s first lockdown, as the number of people taking public transport has increased sharply.
Network Rail said rail journeys surged 31% in three weeks since official government work from home guidance ended.
Boris Johnson announced the change as cases of the Omicron Covid variant began to wane without the mass hospitalisations feared by many experts.
Weekday train journeys hit 2.1million on Monday — up 3% in a week — while 2.32million travelled last Saturday.
Cleanliness is said to be fuelling the return, with eight in ten passengers ‘satisfied’, a Transport Focus survey said this week.
An extra 1,500 staff hired in the pandemic use 13,250 litres of cleaning agent each month to help prevent infections on board.
Transport for London said Tube trips were also up as more and more people headed back into the office.
At yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson made a surprise announcement that all remaining Covid restrictions would be lifted a month earlier than planned.
This would include the legal duty to self-isolate after testing positive, provided ‘encouraging data continues’.
NHS figures yesterday showed the number of Covid patients in England’s hospitals fell 11% in a week to 11,471.
Though the number of patients in hospitals on Tuesday was higher than before Christmas, only 385 were on ventilators — the fewest since July. Deaths with Covid fell over a week to 276, while infections also fell to 68,214.
Johnson said the move was an ‘important step for this country’, showing ‘the hard work of the British people is paying off’.
A spokesman added: ‘It is a boon both for the public — we are able to restore freedoms — but also to hard-hit businesses, particularly hospitality, enabling our economy to grow further.’
Johnson said he would reveal the Government’s new Covid strategy on the first day after parliament’s half term recess.
But not everyone was happy, with campaigners warning the PM was forcing people to ‘gamble with their lives’.
Dr Simon Clarke, of Reading university, called it ‘an experiment which will either be shown to be very brave or very stupid’.
University of East Anglia’s Prof Paul Hunter said: ‘At some point, it’s going to be the case that all remaining restrictions are dropped, including the need to self-isolate, though I certainly didn’t expect that this month.
‘There are grounds for optimism. After a temporary stalling in the rate of decline in reported cases, case numbers have again started to fall.’
James Taylor, from disability equality charity Scope, said: ‘Scrapping self-isolation will mean that some disabled people will be feeling very anxious and could potentially be placed in situations that could prove deadly.
‘Nobody should be forced to gamble with their lives, and we need the government to explain to disabled people how they’ll be safe when this decision is introduced.’
International travel restrictions could still remain, although easing is already due from 4am tomorrow when fully vaccinated UK arrivals and under-18s no longer need to test.
Others must still do so before heading to the country and take a PCR test by day two.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps hailed the changes as ‘travel coming back to usual’ and said holiday plans would ‘never again’ be ruined by Covid rules.
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