After months of national lockdowns and restrictions many of us are looking forward to potentially going on holiday later this year.
With the vaccine rollout well underway many people are thinking about booking a trip away either abroad or in the UK.
In early December before the new highly contagious variant was found Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons: “We do have high confidence that the summer of 2021 will be a bright one without the sort of restrictions that made the summer of 2020 more restricted.
“I’ve booked my holiday - I’m going to Cornwall.”
And the chair of the UK's vaccine taskforce predicted Brits will be able to fly around the world for their summer holidays this year.
Kate Bingham said by the summer of 2021 "we should be in a much better place to get on planes". But she admitted the virus would never completely disappear.
However with the new variant and travel corridors currently closed there is doubt about whether people will be able to go on holiday abroad this year.
Yesterday Matt Hancock reiterated his plan to holiday in Cornwall and said he thought we would all enjoy a "great British summer".
Speaking at the latest Downing Street briefing, Mr Hancock was asked whether families could feel confident in booking a break for the summer holidays as all adults may be vaccinated by the summer.
He said: "On the summer holidays, I'm going to Cornwall and I've said before I think we're going to have a great British summer, but we've got a lot of work to do between now and then.
"What we can do is see the line of sight to vaccinating everybody by September and anything before that would be a bonus.
"As the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, we're driving this as fast as we possibly can."
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But Dr Hilary Jones thinks holidays will be a long way off yet.
Speaking to Lorraine on Monday's show, Dr Hilary said that people thinking about holidays this summer are "barking up the wrong tree".
The expert said: "I hate over promising, and then disappointing people.
"The vaccination process is going to take some time. We might encounter some new variants, we might need to tweak the vaccine."
He went on: "I think people thinking about holidays this summer are barking up the wrong tree, I really do.
"Not just because of the situation here won't be better, but because of where we're going to may be lagging behind us in vaccinations and people will be nervous about going somewhere and getting stuck there."
However, he did add that there could be hope for staycations in the summer time.
He went on to say: "I think, just to be realistic, don't set your hopes too high.
"Be realistic, set your hopes positively for the future, but probably autumn or September."
