A third of the UK’s population believes the coronavirus pandemic will never end, a new survey has revealed.
According to a poll carried out by YouGov/PA on December 20 and 21, some 33% of Britons felt that “the Covid-19 pandemic will never be effectively over in the UK.”
There were a lot more skeptics among older people, who are the most vulnerable to the virus. 40% of those aged over 65 said the pandemic will remain forever, while the sentiment was shared by only 24% in the 18-to-24 age group.
The opinion that it will be more than two years before Covid-19 is behind us was shared by 21% of the 1,652 people who took part in the study.
Almost 30% expected the pandemic, which has already seen more than 148,000 dead and over 11.8 million infected in the UK, to be over sooner than that.
The hardcore optimists who believe it will happen in less than three months made up just 1% of respondents.
With the emergence of the more contagious Omicron variant, the number of those who felt that their life had returned to normal following all the curbs dropped from 20% in early December to only 12%.
The poll also found that six in ten people had reduced the number of handshakes they gave through fear of the virus, while more than half confessed that they were doing less hugging with people who didn’t live under the same roof as them.
