The dream of going 'back to normal' is a huge distraction from the need for change | John Harris

A vaccine will start to ease our collective anxiety, but the reasons why Covid-19 hit the UK hard will not be going away

Back in June, as people in England were adjusting to the loosening of Covid-19 restrictions, and Black Lives Matter was all over the news, I interviewed a number of young people who live in east London. As the conversations went on, a fascinating question came up: if they were presented with the opportunity to rewind to a time before the pandemic, would they take it?

Most of them answered with an emphatic no. This world is crazy, and it really needs to change," said one. If it doesn't, we're all going to get hurt." She mentioned the killing of George Floyd but also talked about injustices and inequalities she saw on her own doorstep, and the sense that since lockdown began everyone had learned things about the state of society. This is a time to remember," she said. All the issues this vivid, volatile period of history had brought to the surface were too important to be pushed back to the margins.