Express & Star comment: Everyone needs an non-infective Christmas

And what everybody needs next year is a great holiday. A bit of sun would be nice.

Until now, and still now, anybody who has looked to book a holiday has been taking a gamble.

For the first time there is some much-needed hope that 2021 will be a much better year, but even with the most optimistic forecasts it is going to be months before the advent of a proven vaccine tips the scales.

The impact on the travel and tourism industry has been nothing less than disastrous. Manchester Airport is the latest to issue its passenger numbers. They have plummeted by 88.5 per cent from 36.4 million to 4.2m.

Nobody is going to be surprised, or if they are, the element of surprise will be that as many as 4.2 million people still got to travel.

In the hugely popular cruise industry, magnificent luxury liners are lying idle. Cunard has cancelled more scheduled sailings, putting back a resumption of services to the early summer at best.

The flip side is a rise in staycations. Domestic destinations saw an arrival of the crowds after the first lockdown which was both worrying and encouraging – the first from a public health point of view, the latter from the viewpoint of helping the local economies.

Getting on top of coronavirus in the UK through mass vaccination is going to change the dynamics, yet issues will remain for foreign travel. Will destination countries be happy to welcome incoming Britons when they themselves are still working to become Covid-safe?

Cruise lines will surely demand that all passengers have been vaccinated, and perhaps initially there will be some trial cruises just taking in UK ports and the Channel Islands.

It has been impossible to get away from it all in 2020, and you're going to have to be patient if you want to get away from it all in 2021.

It is probably best then not to get your hopes up and in any event, when at last vaccinations reboot vacations, and the world opens up once more, there is bound to be a surge of pent-up demand which might be used as an excuse to put up prices.

So keep safe, and keep saving.