There is enough noise in the press to suggest that at least 2 vaccines, namely those of Moderna and Pfizer, have a decent chance of making it through regulatory approval in readiness for distribution to the general public by January in multiple countries around the world. While it will be denied, societal pressure will almost certainly influence key medical regulatory decision makers. It seems likely that the Governments of rich countries of the world will throw large resources at administering a vaccine to the masses as quickly as possible. I definitely don't think any country will complete dometic vaccination by 31-Jan-2021, but I expect many of the over 65s and people with health issues to have received a double dose by 31-May-2021 - this will presumably cut death and hospitalisation rates significantly, allowing rich countries to open up their societies significantly again, even though the number of cases in the domestic population may remain high. In effect, we convert the severity of Covid into something more akin to the flu - not trivial, easily spread and still very common in a population but something much less worrisome
I'm wondering if this might then allow a significant expansion of travel corridors where both country A and country B are wealthy and have a high proportion of the elderly already vaccinated. In effect, flying gets restarted not by proving that a person arriving in country A is not infected, but by knowing that the vulnerable people living in country A are not going to become seriously ill or die in large numbers if domestic infected case rates rise. Maybe UK-Austria agree mutual flying earlier but UK-Albania takes rather longer. Of course, short-haul leisure demand will revive much faster than long-haul business
Any thoughts ?