Next month will mark a year since the first UK lockdown. Remember thinking this will last a couple weeks, maybe a month tops... how naïve were we?! Since then there have been some easing of lockdown restrictions, the introduction of 'tiers' and two more full lockdowns. A year of uncertainty in our businesses, economy and our social lives. This has made 2020 a very tough year for everyone. But the announcement of vaccines being proved effective and being approved for public use in December, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.
Many over 90s got their first dose of the vaccine before Christmas and while the holiday season was very different this year the vaccine has provided hope for 2021. Many couldn't wait to say goodbye to 2020 but as a new year was "celebrated" in lockdown or isolation 2021 definitely wasn't going to suddenly be better. Over a month (and the longest month of all) and the whole of 2021 so far spent in lockdown is disheartening, demotivating and depressing. There have also been new variants of the virus proving to be more infectious and with uncertainty of the vaccines effect on those new variants. This can make any last bit of hope for normality of some extent in the near future diminish. However, that hope need not be lost! Since the discovery of the new variants, tests and trials have been conducted to see whether the vaccine is still effective and it appears to continue to reduce the risk and spread of the virus. As well as these studies there is some BREAKING NEWS! The UK government have managed to not completely mess this up. In fact they appear to have set achievable targets and efficiently roll out the vaccine. The government plan to have all over 50s and those at high risk vaccinated by May. This will very likely be the case unless something goes wrong in the next few months. Since December 11 million people have already been given their first jab, that's almost 1/6th of the UK population!
So what does this all mean? It means that there is hope. There is hope for your business, there is hope for your health and there is hope for your social life. The government have so far handled the vaccine roll out well, however how they handle the next few months will be crucial. Easing restrictions too soon could lead to another full lockdown. While everyone wants the economy to get back up and running, another lockdown will not help. We might go back to a tier system to start with or the whole country will have restrictions lifted at the same time. When these will happen is likely down to the stats and a lifting of restrictions will likely happen as soon as safely possible. We will likely see the beginning of normal around May time and be back to normal by autumn.
By the time we are out of this over a year will have passed. Without a doubt that year will have been one of the toughest for everyone for many different reasons. But what does this mean for the economy and your business? Many company's have suffered the effects of COVID-19 with some possibly never recovering from it. However, the easing of restriction will allow you to continue to do business. It will allow you to open shops, offices and see people face to face. This will likely continue to be a tough time for business but it will also allow businesses to start back up again. The government is also keep to keep business going as it is good for the economy. The government has already tried to support businesses and hopefully they will continue to do what they can to keen things going. As businesses open up again hopefully more people will get jobs again and slowly (but not too slowly) but surely things will go back to how they were before or similar.
Unfortunately, this virus is not likely to completely disappear all of a sudden. New variants being discovered already implies the virus will continue to mutate and it may never go away completely. But the vaccine appears to continue to be effective against the new variants so we may still be able to be rid of the virus completely. This will still take time and the rest of the world needs to be vaccinated too. As long as the spread of the virus continues to decrease and the number of hospital administrations and deaths from the virus decreases, society can begin to go back to normality. With the help of the government the economy will recover quite quickly and hopefully businesses and jobs will be saved. We have hope for the future, we hope you have hope for future and we hope your business survives this pandemic and its aftermath.
Let us know how your business is doing in the pandemic and your hopes for 2021.