Most Britons think the pandemic will last for at least another year
The Covid-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation on 11 March 2020. January 2022 will mark two years since the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the UK.
YouGov data shows 41% of Britons think it will be at least another year before the pandemic is effectively over in the UK – including 20% who think it will be between one and two years and 21% who think more than two years.
A third (33%) of Britons think the Covid-19 pandemic will never be effectively over in the UK, while just 4% of Britons think the pandemic is already effectively over.
Older Britons are much more likely than younger ones to think Covid-19 will be endemic in the future – 40% of over-65s say the pandemic will never be effectively over in the UK, compared to 24% of 18 to 24-year-olds.
Omicron has led to fewer people feeling like life is back to normal
The highly-transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19 has swept through the UK this December, leading to record high case numbers, and YouGov polling reveals that more than half of the British public is worried about the new variant.
The Omicron variant has led to fewer Britons thinking that their life has returned to how it was before the pandemic. On 1-2 December, a fifth of Britons (20%) said they felt like their life had returned to normal – now, that figure is just one in eight (12%).
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