When can we return to our old lives (post pandemic)?

We will not return to our lives for many years. Why?

The answer is simple. As long as we are in a pandemic and with the incompetence of our governments, we can't go back to the old life we had before the pandemic appeared from China. But here follow the possible scenarios:

1. The vaccine works and we manage to vaccinate the world population and reach herd immunity. The pandemic will be very likely defeated and we can indeed return to our old lives (if the governments allow that).
2. The vaccination campaign is too slow to be implemented in the world, but the world reaches the natural herd immunity. In that case, the same effects will take place as number 1, but without vaccinations.
3. The vaccine doesn't work (as fully or partly intended or designed), or there are mutations of the coronavirus, which neutralize the effects of the vaccine, the herd immunity will not reach the population (the 60%), we're in deep trouble and it will take many years (more likely many decades) before we can reach point number one here. But the chance of going back to our old live will be gone, together with the economy and society.
4. Political, economical and military events will take place, which influences/covers large parts of the world. For example a deep economical depression will cripple most countries in the world. A possible war or multiple wars against major powers will cripple the world as well. A major civil war in the US will do the same. The vaccination campaign will be an afterthought.

Point number two or three is more likely than point number one. The countries and their governments don't take the global vaccination campaign serious. It takes too long to vaccinate the population and the risk of lethal mutations of the coronavirus becomes bigger by the day.

• In the table below, we see the performance of 50 countries about their vaccination efforts.
• In the second column we see the size of the population of each country.
• In the third column we see the actual number of people vaccinated (at 17 of January 2021).
• The fifth column displays the number of people supposingly be vaccinated if they want to finish it in a year.
• The fourth column displays the percentage of the people actually vaccinated.
• The sixth column displays the number of people supposingly be vaccinated if they want to finish it in two years.

All data used in this article is being prepared and calculated in a spreadsheet. You can download this spreadsheet here, where it is stored in a zip (compressed) file. That file is 1.9 Mb. large and it contains an Excel spreadsheet, and CVS-files.

The raw data used in the spreadsheet is from the Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. Those files are separately downloaded already and you can find them in the zip-file for your convenience.