Well, the Hunt children had been jumping up and down with the excitement of going back to school with uniforms prepared and satchels packed when the totally unexpected happened… Dad got Covid.

Having ducked the cursed virus for over a year, the dreaded news came through from NHS Test and Trace on Tuesday morning.

Ironically, it happened to be half-an-hour before chairing a Select Committee at which Sir Simon Stevens was the guest witness, something I was able to do because my symptoms remain very mild.

But as someone who has complained loudly in the past about failings with NHS Test and Trace, I was amused to see my phone buzzing throughout the morning as they tried to get in touch with me with great diligence.

In fact, the success of Test and Trace is something that should be more talked about alongside the better-known achievements of the vaccine programme.

Indeed, from my experience, it has become a model of efficiency.

My PCR test was conducted smoothly in Onslow park and ride and I was struck by the relaxed friendliness of the staff doing what cannot be a very appealing job.

The result came through in less than 24 hours, and all the people I have spoken to on the phone about the self-isolation requirements were clear, kind and helpful.

That is not to say there are not improvements that still need to be made – I am still concerned that too many people may not be complying with requests to self-isolate.

I also think that if we were to start all over again, we would organise the contact tracing through local authorities (although it makes sense to have a few mega labs to do the testing).

But overall, 89 per cent of close contacts are being reached and told to self-isolate, 83 per cent of face-to-face tests are being returned within 24 hours and on Monday we performed a whopping 1.5 million tests – which must be a European record – across the country as the schools went back.

We need to give credit where credit is due to Dido Harding, who despite a lot of flak has done her role completely unpaid throughout the pandemic.

She and her team have built up an organisation that will be vitally important if our exit from lockdown is to be as irreversible as the prime minister hopes.

So now ten days of isolation are in store for the Hunt family, which we are managing thanks to iPads, board games, Netflix and the great kindness of our neighbours.

And my children are enjoying the novelty of not being at schools with their friends a little too much for mum and dad’s liking, but a rude awakening awaits!