The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines in the UK is going well, so it seems there are grounds for optimism. But what can we really say about where the vaccines have got us so far and where we are likely to be when the rollout is complete?

What's the safest way of opening schools? Researchers from the JUNIPER Consortium have been exploring this question and have come up with some very interesting results. "We weren't investigating whether we should reopen schools," says Louise Dyson, Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Warwick and a member of the JUNIPER consortium. "Instead we were asking, are there things we can do with testing to make things better."

One of our earliest COVID memories is talking to epidemiologist Julia Gog in mid-March last year. "Life is not going to be the same for a long time," Gog said back then, pointing to the potential death toll and multiple lockdowns for months, or years, to come. It was then that the gravity of what was about to unfold began to dawn on us.