Sign up to FREE email alerts from the Northern Agenda The coronavirus pandemic is not over - and we know it won’t be for a while.
But as the UK prepares for a return to a normal life, or as close to one as can be promised, the country is confronting a very different situation to last summer.
This time 12 months ago, the UK was coming out of its first national lockdown. READ MORE: Shops, pubs and restaurants had reopened their doors and customers and staff were cautiously navigating new one-way systems and enhanced hygiene practices that would soon become second nature. ‘Variants of concern’ were of no concern to the majority of people with limited knowledge of how a virus spreads, but news of a new treatment for those on ventilators was