- Question
Will a COVID-19 vaccine save us from a permanent new normal?
The Pfizer announcement has renewed hope that the new normal will soon be lifted. Meanwhile, Oxford University says its own vaccine might be ready before the end of the year. What will this mean for 2021? Can we go back to our lives before the pandemic, or are masks and social distancing here to stay?
A vaccine will allow us to go back to our normal lives
A COVID-19 vaccine will reduce the risks of contagion and lives will go back to a pre-pandemic normality. Social distancing will no longer be necessary and people will return to the office.
A vaccine will not erase the changes to our daily lives
This position holds that a Covid-19 vaccine will not erase the changes the pandemic brought to daily life. It argues some shifts are permanent — remote work as the norm, masks more widely worn — and that a single, hard-to-roll-out vaccine will not by itself restore the old normal.