Vaccines have given us hope, but they won't end the global battle against Covid | Andrew Pollard

The ability of the virus to mutate means we'll be living with it for years to come, and may need a new generation of vaccines

• Andrew Pollard is chief investigator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trial
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After a difficult year of battling Covid-19, we are now beginning to see the rollout of many effective vaccines across the world, including the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which I helped to develop. It's therefore to be expected that people might begin to ask, When will life return to normal?"

The main indication of this will be when the pressure begins to ease on public health systems. So far, the signs are good as the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines all show almost complete protection against hospitalisation, even in countries with new variants.