The start of the mass rollout of coronavirus vaccines promised a clear path out of the health and economic crisis that has gripped the world for the past 12 months. The emergence of mutated strains, particularly the South African variant and concerns over the effectiveness of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against it, has shifted the debate about how straight that path might be. The question now is not how quickly we go back to normality but what kind of normality that will be. The ever-changing threat that the virus presents means that some aspects of pandemic life may be here for the medium or even the long term. Any remaining hopes for the speedy eradication of Covid-19 look fanciful.
新型冠狀病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠狀病毒病）疫苗大規模推廣的開始，有望爲擺脫這場在過去12個月裏一直困擾世界的衛生和經濟危機開闢一條明確的道路。但突變毒株的出現，尤其是新冠病毒南非變種以及有關牛津/阿斯特捷利康(Oxford/AstraZeneca)疫苗對該變種有效性的擔憂，改變了關於憑藉疫苗結束疫情的道路有多順利的辯論。眼下的問題不是我們能多快恢復常態，而是將恢復怎樣的常態。新冠病毒帶來的威脅不斷變化，這意味著疫情下生活的某些方面可能會在中期乃至長期一直存在。殘存的任何快速根除新冠疫情的希望似乎都是異想天開。