Coronavirus vaccine will not allow rapid return to normal life, scientists warn
Royal Society warns it may take up to a year to distribute Covid-19 jabs

The development of a coronavirus vaccine in early 2021 will not mean an immediate return to normality, leading scientists have warned.
Even if a Covid-19 jab becomes available in spring, it will take upwards of a year to administer to everyone in the UK, the report by the Royal Society says.
The UK’s national academy of sciences cautioned that people need to be “realistic” about what a vaccine can achieve, adding that other virus-fighting measures - such as social distancing - will need to remain in place.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Even if it is effective, it is unlikely that we will be able to get back completely to normal,” said Charles Bangham, chairman of immunology at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the report.
“There’s going to be a sliding scale: even after the introduction of a vaccine that we know to be effective, we will have to gradually relax some of the other interventions.”
Professor Nilay Shah, head of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, added that life will not be “returning to normal in March” if a vaccine becomes available.
“If vaccination does start in the spring, it will take a long time to work through the different priority groups initially, and then the wider population later on,” Shah said. “We may be able to start the process but then to get through that vaccination process, it will take many months, maybe more than a year.”
There are currently more than 200 potential vaccines being developed by scientists, with “optimism, including from the UK government's scientific advisers, that some people may get a vaccine this year and mass vaccination may start early next year”, the BBC says.
The report from the Royal Society comes just weeks after a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official issued a similar warning, saying hopes that a coronavirus vaccine will end the global pandemic are unrealistic.
Hans Kluge, the health agency’s regional director for Europe, told Bloomberg that while there has been an “unprecedented coordinated effort globally” to create a working vaccination, the drug is “not the issue”.
“The vaccine is not going to be the end of the pandemic,” Kluge said. “The end of the pandemic is going to be when we as people learn to live with the pandemic, and that can begin tomorrow.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Today's political cartoons - March 30, 2025
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - strawberry fields forever, secret files, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilariously sparse cartoons about further DOGE cuts
Cartoons Artists take on free audits, report cards, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Following the Tea Horse Road in China
The Week Recommends This network of roads and trails served as vital trading routes
By The Week UK Published
-
Five years on: How Covid changed everything
Feature We seem to have collectively forgotten Covid’s horrors, but they have completely reshaped politics
By The Week US Published
-
RFK Jr. offers alternative remedies as measles spreads
Speed Read Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes unsupported claims about containing the spread as vaccine skepticism grows
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How close are we to a norovirus vaccine?
Today's Big Question A new Moderna trial raises hopes of vanquishing a stomach bug that sickens millions a year
By David Faris Published
-
HMPV is spreading in China but there's no need to worry
The Explainer Respiratory illness is common in winter
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Marty Makary: the medical contrarian who will lead the FDA
In the Spotlight What Johns Hopkins surgeon and commentator Marty Makary will bring to the FDA
By David Faris Published
-
Bird flu one mutuation from human threat, study finds
Speed Read A Scripps Research Institute study found one genetic tweak of the virus could enable its spread among people
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Long Covid: study shows damage to brain's 'control centre'
The Explainer Research could help scientists understand long-term effects of Covid-19 as well as conditions such as MS and dementia
By The Week UK Published
-
Israel, UN agree to Gaza pauses for polio vaccinations
Speed Read Gaza's first case of polio in 25 years was confirmed last week in a 10-month-old boy who is now partially paralyzed
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published