UKC

From what I've seen and heard the "experts" are talking about a Covid vaccination programme by the end of the year.

Assuming there are no cock ups and everything(worldwide) goes according to plan and expectations how long do people think it will be before we are back to any semblance of normality?

Autumn 2021 I think realistically. Vaccination of 68 million people will take a while, especially if it ends up requiring a booster a few months down the line.

What hope of foreign hols next year then?

No idea how long to normal but I was only 24hrs from Tulsa.

Spring 2022. 

Don't need everyone, just all those aged 50+, health care workers and the vulnerable....but I agree that autumn next year is realistic. 

My punt....6-9 months till we don't have it preoccupying everything and probably 12 months until we are really on top of it....

....but hope is good and that makes a difference in life so maybe a bit better in to the new year in terms of personal outlook.

My guess is that once all the old and otherwise medically vulnerable people have been vaccinated, say by Easter, then the death rate and hospital admissions will plummet.

At that point the need to protect the NHS will become redundant. Covid will become like any other of life's small risks and regardless of anything the government say or do most people will just do what they want and we will return to a de facto normal, especially as spring will bring a natural reduction in the infection anyway.

The pressure on the government to get businesses back up and running plus their natural reluctance to order people not to do things means they are highly unlikely to stop people doing things anyway. As it is, the current "lockdown" seems to be largely optional and nobody seems to be making any effort to enforce anything.

So my guess is it will feel largely normal by Easter.

A lot of people had foreign holidays this year, so in view of what I posted above I'd say it's extremely likely we will have them next year. There may be a few countries which hold out against visitors, Australia and New Zealand perhap, but many European countries will be desperate to get their tourist industries back up and running.

I think once the true extent of long covid is understood there will be more of a push to vaccinate all/ most age groups. Having large numbers of people on long term sick leave is not going to be good for anyone. Still, the more we vaccinate, the lower the transmission and case numbers so hopefully the levels of restrictions required can continue to drop even before we get everyone vaccinated.

This is normal

I don't think we're ever going all the way back to how things were, some changes are here to say around the high street and working form home.  

In terms of back to normal, I think it's too soon to say.  The latest drip-feeding of vaccine results to the press has improved my optimism but until the full details are published and until we've seen how the next few months go, I think it's too soon to know with much certainty.  

Not earlier than October 2021, hopefully not later than April 2022 would be my take, but I think July and August next year should be pretty damned good given how well they went this year (relatively speaking) and how we should be in a better place by then.

Yes, there's still a lot of unknowns, and to allow it to rip through the young and healthy population is still a risk for them albeit smaller than it is for the vulnerable. I suspect the healthcare systems could still be overwhelmed in a 'let it rip' scenario even if the old are safe.

It will take a while - even at the lauded 1m vaccines a week that is still 70 weeks to vaccinate the population, 140 weeks if two trips are required. However by Easter the old and the vulnerable should be done so the old, infirm and young can go out to play while the merely middle aged will still be gathering coronaspeck.

You won't vaccinate 68 million. 35-40 million will be a good effort. People won't get it. But even that much pushes down the infection rate massively. 

Yeah I think next summer should be much better but normal by the next school year. 

It depends on what you mean by semblance of normality. I expect most restrictions will be lifted around June 2020. Some things would still be very restricted or banned - anything involving large gatherings, so festivals, theatres, spectator sports and night clubs. We would still have SD and face masks, which means no full scale return to the office for office workers and reduced capacity in pubs and restaurants. Beyond that, it depends how things go with the vaccines rollout and their long term effectiveness. As long as the vaccines prove to be as effective as suggested, I would expect normal life to resume by summer 2021.

I agree don't need everyone to drive deaths right down but under 50 year old, reasonably healthy people can still get it pretty bad and death or Long Covid are possibilities. Anyone not vaccinated is going to be a vector for infecting anyone else who isn't vaccinated or has a weak immune response to the vaccine. So it does need to be everyone who can have it, I think.

It doesn't. You don't need herd immunity to slow the infection rate (as you say). 

We won't get 100% vaccination of those who can be vaccinated, we should aim for that but the reality is the anti-vaxxers have had a significant impact on uptake. I think 50-60% is as good as it will get - we're already seeing a massive increase in measles as kids are no longer getting vaccinated, never mind healthy adults. That will reduce transmission rate as there's less chance of an infected person being close to a susceptible person. 

We can effectively force travelers and kids in school to get vaccines to some degree but many will not get it. 

You are in the states, right? I think (hope?) that we have fewer anti vaxxers in the uk. I think we should get better uptake than you.

If other countries start to decide that a vaccine certificate is needed to pass border control then we will definitely get a pretty high uptake!!

I don't know what % is required for her immunity for this virus. I've seen 70% but not sure how scientific that is. It depends on the natural R of the virus - for measles it's very high so it requires something like 85% vaccination, may be even higher. My point is, if the uptake isn't high enough it will be made mandatory or quasi mandatory (not allowed to do various things without it). It's not the British way but people (including myself) were saying we'd never get a lockdown because it's not the British way and BoJo has a libertarian streak. Well we know how that turned out!

The whole world is totally f*cked at the moment and we can't have anti-vaxxers and libertarians getting in the way of us getting back to normality.

Yeah, I actually looked at stats on vaccine uptake but couldn't see any. I've certainly seen concerned posts about the vaccine from uk friends on facebook.

Antivaxxers are odd because they aren't a single block, they are conservatives, liberals and libertarians. And many don't consider themselves anti vaxxers. They'll vaccinate their kids with the standard regimen but just refuse any extras. 

I wonder how workplaces can insist on it, or encourage it. My work here insisted we had the flu vaccine this year but I'm not sure it was in anyway enforceable. 

'incentives' will be the best way, over here cheaper insurance etc, travel passports. Care homes etc can insist on it. But the movement has been going for the last 6 months to slow vaccine uptake.

But if we vaccinate a good 90% of the elderly and at risk we massively reduce the load on hospitals. 

It depends how quickly the vaccines get approved and to a lesser extent which ones. I had read there is only a need for the Oxford one and other non RNA ones to be refrigerated and not frozen to -70c. I would have thought this will really speed up the roll out. 

My guess is by the end of March there will be less restrictions than in September of this year. I'm really hoping small gigs are back on by then! 

Totally back to normal is hard to judge, Maybe June-August next year being optimistic about it. I'm starting to think there is a glimmer of hope for festivals next year.

I suspect a lot of people will have an inbuilt aversion to crowded places for years. 

Yes but at some point there has to be a trade off between public health and the economy/society....we are now quite rightly protecting the NHS but we need to be careful to not go overboard.

Hospitalisation rates drop off very quickly by age below 50.....long covid is something that needs to be considered, granted. 

Supposing vulnerable people vaccinated and we went back to normal. Covid rips through the population, mostly asymptomatically but inevitably exposing the vulnerable who are only 95% protected by the vaccine or unvaccinated for medical reasons.

It might be you need to vaccinate 70% of whole population so you don't get largely asymptomatic outbreaks spreading to the vulnerable.

Someone would have to do the maths........if only 5% of the vunerable are exposed the number of deaths and hospitalisations would be vastly reduced.

Back of a fag packet calculations would put 5% of current deaths at 2.6k, lets call it 4k as rwcs.....hospitalisations are harder to work out as the data is split by 18-64 and 65+.

65+ account for 64% of all hospital admissions though.......so the 128k admitted in this age group would drop to 6.4k....call it 10k as a rwcs.

The point remains that there will come a point when people will want some serious easing of restrictions bordering on normality once the 50+ age groups, health care workers and vunerable under 50 are vaccinated.

Of course you need to factor in people who will refuse it.....personally I'd make them sign a waiver that said if the contract COVID-19 they will get no NHS treatment

They certainly can't insist on it. I've been working continuously from start of pandemic to present, my workplace has had no cases. It would be jarring, illogical and probably illegal to then be told you must vaccinate or you're fired after them being happy to remain open for the duration.

I can imagine if you work with the vulnerable or in a frontline medical role they might have grounds to insist on a flu jab, but otherwise I believe totally unenforceable.

Other bit of fag packet.

If covid rips through the 90%(?) of the younger population who are non-infected we have ten times as many under fifties with long covid as we have had so far.

I don't know how big that number is but risk of long covid is non-zero.

Other one is a ten pound vaccine is cheap compared to any time off work.

Fingers crossed multiple vaccines released for mass vaccination in spring resulting in herd immunity by summer.

I agree that a lot of restrictions will be lifted around April / May time if most of the elderly and vulnerable are vaccinated by then (that's a big if!). However we will still need the vast majority of the population to be vaccinated to actually be more of less rid of the bloody virus, recognising that it will probably become endemic, a bit like its relative, the common cold. That's not an issue if people are suitably protected so that hardly anyone gets seriously ill. 

Unenforceable unless the law is changed. And laws do change, as we have seen this year...

If vaccine take up isn't high enough, it will be made mandatory or quasi mandatory, with all sorts of legal mechanisms to force people to have it (unless they are exempt on medical grounds).

Given where the world is right now, I think that would be totally justified and most people would support it.

Having said that, it is of course preferable to persuade rather than force people to have it. But eventually it will be forced if it needs to be. It was exactly that with the lockdown.

Even if not mandatory, they'll ban people from all sorts of venues if they don't have it for anything other than medical reasons and I can imagine you'll be barred from travelling to a lot of foreign countries.....if that happens watch even hardcore anti-vaxxers change their tune. 

Exactly. I am 39 and have a climbing friend who is around my age and has ended up with Long Covid. I also know someone at work who is younger than me and has been hit by Covid pretty hard, not bad enough to go to hospital fortunately but several weeks off so far and no immediate prospect of a return to work. Food for thought...

If the papers are to be believed, there's a plan to vaccinate most adults by Easter. That would be fantastic but seems overly optimistic. We shall see.

It's a shame it can't be insisted on, if I get the possibility to do so I will be paying for my staff to have it. I would like to make the point that not everyone was "happy" to remain open for the duration.

I would have loved to have shut up shop, the Mrs is vulnerable yet I was and still are out at work everyday often working with others rather than staying at home to shield her. 

Though it was my choice to do that my choice was based on our responsibility to our customers in the food, pharma and utility sectors. I'm pretty sure society still needed to eat, use medicine and love the fact that water comes from their taps. 

The US developed vaccine needs 6 weeks from the first dose to take effect and I think that's pretty common in vaccines so I'd expect that to be the same here no matter which vaccine you get.

Given the tests for vaccines DON'T consist of giving someone the vaccine and covid at the same time but measuring antibodies over time and how many go on to get covid and how they react etc means they are being tested in the current world where people are being more careful around social distancing and masks than normal. Viral load when everyone is back in pubs etc with no social distancing would be higher so I'd expect there to be a period of getting more than just at risk groups vaccinated before things can fully go back to normal.

I suspect we will have a ‘world beating’ vaccination programme so add a few months, at least, to the best estimates. 

If Matt Hancock is going to personally take charge of the rollout I revise my prediction back a year.

"Given the tests for vaccines DON'T consist of giving someone the vaccine and covid at the same time but measuring antibodies over time and how many go on to get covid and how they react etc means they are being tested in the current world where people are being more careful around social distancing and masks than normal"

But they compare to the placebo group and how much less they get covid, and its severity.

All being well we should be free of social restrictions within a year, maybe a fair bit sooner if these front running vaccines all deliver.

The shock to education and the employment market is going to have serious consequences for years.

The loss of good businesses while marginal one's survive, a matter largely of luck which restrictions and aid interact, that's going to hurt for a long time too.

With a big tory majority we're unlikely to be rid of at the next election we probably also now have the trigger and cover for another decade of wealth transferring turbo austerity and the dreadful politics that will eventually lead to.

Normal has changed.

Jk

I think education will be a huge priority. We can't have another year being disrupted. But also parents just cannot work effectively with kids learning remotely.

Yes I agree but the difference I was pointing out is that both the test group and the control group are living in a society that has social distancing and masks in place.

Bit different to everyone in the pub after a few drink shouting at each other from a foot away over the music on a Friday.

about 5 years for most place but Uk is going to be double whammied by Brexit chaos on to of C-19

'No politics please'

It's all politics. The UK is being ruined for my children and grandchildren by the most corrupt, inept, wicked and incompetent government that is has been my misfortune to witness - and that includes Heath, even frigging Thatcher. If you have children their futures are not what they would or should have been. They may ask you to explain why not; you'd better have some good answers.

What happens next is at least 80% politics.

Jk

You're probably right there. By 2024 Covid (and more importantly the government's inept response to it) will be a bit of a distant memory. People who don't vote Tory anyway will have another reason not to vote for them. People who usually vote Tory will probably vote for them anyway (even now, the Tories are polling around 40%!). The swing voters will probably be focusing on whatever will be important to them in 2024 - the economy, probably. By 2024 the economy should be back on the mend and the Tories will claim credit for that, like they always do (like most governments do, to be fair).

Yes. I suspect things will be a lot more ‘normal’ by the end of January. 
 

The vaccines will mass rollout to the majority of health workers and over 75s by then. 

Then they’ll use testing to keep pressure on the areas of high infections. 

That could easily be enough but they'll have the Scotland trump card to play too which is a double whammy, for them in England (preventing an imagined Lab SNP pact) and against Labour in Scotland by whipping up the Scots against the English, pushing them to the SNP to deny Labour gains. Dragging out the collapse of the Union for party gain is reckless but that hasn't stood in the way of the appalling politics so far this decade.

Jk

I’d be amazed if they roll out the vaccines to the vast majority of over 75s by the end of January. 

Assuming Scotland is still part of the UK in 2024. Of course independence would entrench a Tory majority in whatever is left of the ex-UK.

We vaccinate about a million people a month with the flu jab just in doctors surgeries. 

I don’t think DoR is taking much account of the time needed before the repeat injection nor the time for the vaccine to take effect.

End of January for “normality” seems like a very unlikely result.  

A lot more ‘normal’ is what I wrote. 
 

All we are initially trying to do is reduce the admissions to hospitals. You can do that by vaccinating the most at risk. Then it just becomes an exercise in administering steroids to those who become more sick. 
 

You’d have to define what you consider ‘normal’. Carrying on like before where no one is bothered about it? Spring 2022, once we’ve been through another flu season and the vaccines have shown to be long lasting and effective. 
 

Back to concerts, sports and pubs with no restrictions. Summer 2021.

Back to visiting friends, pubs and general socialising for young people with low risk and those that have been vaccinated. School measures lifted. End of January. 

I doubt it.Just the practilities of a 3 week gap between 2 doses suggest that this is not really a suitable timescale.There are 3.2 million over 80s in the UK.

I would also suggest you need to target other vulnerable people and those in social care and front line NHS as well.

There were about 50,000 doses of modena available in December.

We did 14m flu vaccinations last year....

Single dose in one hit

Thinking on from my OP, I am wondering what happens once an individual as been vaccinated. What "normality" can each individual expect post vaccination?

Ok. But that’s including over 50s and healthcare workers.

I know they already have village halls planned in for administrating the vaccines and people trained to give it. It’ll just be an in-out flow of people. 
 

It’s not hard to learn how to inject someone. Lots of us do it to ourselves. Takes seconds to administer. Took me about 5 minutes to learn and a few practices and you’re done. 

None until your region reaches a certain threshold of old people vaccinated. 
 

I’ll expect the older still to be shielding but once a significant number of the carers have been vaccinated it becomes a more secure shield. And they’re the large numbers in ITU.