Coronavirus vaccines could help Scots get back to “near normal” in May, according to a senior UK Cabinet Minister.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack suggested “early summer” after being asked when restrictions like mask wearing and social distancing could be eased.
It was announced this week that regulators had approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for use in the UK.
Scotland will initially receive 65,600 doses and the mass immunisation programme will begin on Tuesday.
The news has inevitably led to questions about when the capacity will exist to vaccinate the entire population, and when normality in the UK will be restored.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the Government’s deputy chief medical officer in England, said yesterday: “I don’t think we are going to eradicate coronavirus ever.
“I think it’s going to be with humankind forever.
“I think we may get to a point where coronavirus becomes a seasonal problem.
“I don’t want to draw too many parallels with ‘flu, but, possibly, that is the kind of way we would learn to live with it.”
However, in an interview with the BBC, Jack said: “I think, early summer, we’ll see us getting back to what I would call near normal.”
He added: “The human race, I think, has only ever eradicated one virus, which was smallpox, and we’ve learnt to manage and live with the other ones, so I think Jonathan Van Tam was right in what he says, but we have to, through the vaccination process, we could get back to, I think near normal - crystal ball slightly - sometime in May possibly.”
