Return to normal life by April ‘is unrealistic’

THE coronavirus vaccine does not mean people can ‘ start going mad’ again in the near future, senior officials warned yesterday.

Widespread immunity will take some time to achieve and it was an ‘unrealistic expectation’ to assume life would be back to normal by April, a government source said.

The source added that the Pfizer/ BioNTech jab will primarily reduce deaths and hospitalisations in the elderly and vulnerable.

Senior officials fear that people will ‘start going mad’ once the vulnerable have had the jab, and that the epidemic will grow again as a result. But community transmission will only begin to fall when the rest of the population is immunised, they added.

This week a British grandmother became the first person in the world to be given the jab. It has also emerged that dozens of GP practices have opted out of the vaccine rollout. It means more than 100,000 patients in England will not be able to get the jab from their family doctor, the Guardian reported.

NHS trusts in areas including Manchester, Sussex, Lincolnshire and the Thames Valley will have to arrange for patients registered at affected surgeries to be vaccinated elsewhere. Some GPs have said patients would suffer if they had to cut back services so that doctors can administer injections.

A spokeswoman for the NHS said: ‘General practices will deliver the vaccine from nominated sites within primary care networks where it is safe and practical to do so.’