Could someone please tell me that this vaccine is going to work and this will all be over this year?

[Margeryprongs]

Just that.

It will work, won't it?
And this nightmare will end and I'll be able to see my mum, the kids will be in school full time no probs and ill be able to go to a gig by September, surely?

Once the Oxford vaccine has been approved the rate of vaccination will increase because it is much more stable and can go out into the community. There are also lots of doses already manufactured and the ingredients ready to manufacture loads more.

It’s not going to be like flicking a switch, but I believe it will get better gradually. We might be wearing masks and socially distancing for a while but things will reopen and we will get back to normal.

I won’t be sad if this brings about a permanent change where, like in Japan, people carry on wearing a mask if they are sick to stop spreading it around.

I think lockdown three will be the worst, starting in January and with the schools shut down, people at the end of their rope.

But the vaccines will bring relief and the spring will be better, infection rates down and the gradual opening up of everything over the summer.

I’m hoping by the Autumn I can have the holiday I postponed from 2020. We’d paid the deposit and the only options were lose the money or kick it down the road.

So, yes, I think it will be better. But we’ve got a nasty lockdown to get through first.

OP it was already way better in the summer, which gives me huge hopes. We had no vaccine then but were able to do quite a lot of stuff again! I even had the guts to go to the gym and to restaurants and clothes shopping ! I even tried on a dress in the changing rooms and bought it. All socially distanced and with masks etc and I didn't get covid. At one point we had I think just 800 cases in the whole of the UK- that's not a lot of cases based on a population of 66 million. This was ALL BEFORE any kind of vaccine. I'm very hopeful that by summer it will be better. The new variant has thrown a spanner in the works, but who knows, maybe it's less deadly too- I've read a bit that viruses go that way when they become more infectious. This is just me being optimistic though. Who knows !

I agree @RhiWrites - science will save us but there is a winter/spring of pain ahead - worse than we’ve exposed far. Worse because some people have absolutely no social responsibility and will ignore rules and guidelines.

By March/April, I feel things will be better.
DP and I planning a lot of events and socialising next year. It will be much better than 2020.

yy middle the babying and optimism is doing more harm than good. I never believe Johnson which makes my life easier.

I think it will get better absolutely.

But I also think some precautions will still be in place. I expect to have to use sanitiser before entering my workplace and any shop or public place indefinitely. I expect people to stay at home when they are unwell (allowances for people to work from home if they have a minor illness).
I also hope that the government takes some lessons from NZ and australia about introducing effective track and trace procedures.
Don’t forget that no vaccines have been approved for under 18s yet and that some countries are likely to require proof of vaccination before allowing you in so travel etc may take longer to get back to normal.

But yes the world will be in a much better place in 6 months.

I hope so op. Although I don’t think it will happen ‘this year’ with only a week left ...! 🤣

It will work. We might need to adapt the vaccine each year as new strains come out, like we do for flu, but the bulk of the work is done.
Things will be significantly better in the summer, even if part of that is brought on by weather lifestyle and much better by the end of the year.
Chin up OP, darkest before the dawn and all that.

I hope so like others I'm just dealing with the present now as the future doesn't look to bright.
I had a holiday booked for next year, our first family holiday in years it got cancelled to TUI UK because of Brexit they offered to sell it to an Irish company I cancelled altogether.

I think the next few months are going to be pretty awful maybe going back to how things were in March/April....but I'm hopeful for the latter half of next year.
At the beginning of the pandemic the WHO said the expected time scale for a pandemic was 18 months to 2 years, and that was without taking a vaccine (or vaccines plural) into account. We are nearly a year into into it and while I think things will likely get worse before they get better, I'm hopeful they are going to be better in the next year.

Yes the vaccine will work. Because vaccines have a long and solid history of working, there is no reason to suppose this will be different!

And even if it didn't- pandemics always end. They follow a curve, then drop off. Again, every pandemic in history has done this.

Well it has to at some point doesn't it but I honestly don't think it will go and we will have to learn to live with it. What frustrates me is the damage that will have been done once normal
Life can resume. The jobs lost, the recession we will be living in, small businesses gone etc etc. Life really isn't going to be normal as we know it (pre covid) for a long time yet

@gamerchick

I've wrote next year off. This isn't going to end any time soon. There's like 64 million people in the UK. A fair chunk of those will need vaccinating. We've done half a million so far or something isn't it? It's going to take a while.

@gamerchick

You're wrong. We only need to vaccinate the most vulnerable for hospitalisation and death rates to fall off a cliff. Also this new strain means herd immunity will come quicker. Yes, I know some ppl can get it twice but MOST ppl develop at T cell immunity.

Pandemics always follow the same curve. They end. This one will too

@Chloemol

I think it will be better than this year , however in order to get there at least 70% of the population needs to be vaccinated. I am honestly not sure if that will be done by September, but I hope so

@Chloemol

Incorrect. We only need to vaccinate the most vulnerable 20 percent. Once the over 75's stop dying we can all go back to normal.

There is no evidence of lasting immunity. Why do people keep banging on about herd immunity like it means letting it rip through the population?

I think we'll probably spend the first half of 2021 in and out of tiers and lockdowns. I think it will be a very gradual process back to normal, and we won't have fully got there by this time next year.

Thanks all for hope and realism you've helped me through a low point on the corona coaster
Here's to 2022!