Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says crisis will be over by this time next year

Prime minister says UK cannot ‘just go back to normal’ after pandemic

Boris Johnson has indicated that he expects the coronavirus crisis to be over by this time next year.

In an address to the Conservative party’s virtual conference, he said that he believed the next time the annual event is staged in October 2021, activists will be able to meet in person.

Mr Johnson said he knew that the UK would succeed in defeating the Covid-19 epidemic.

“I can tell you that your government is working night and day to repel this virus,” he said.

“And we will succeed, just as this country has seen off every alien invader for the last thousand years.

“And we will succeed by collective effort, by following the guidance and with the help of weekly and almost daily improvements in the medicine and the science, we will ensure that next time we meet it will be face to face and cheek by jowl.

“And we are working for the day when life will be back to normal, flying in a plane will be back to normal, and hairdressers will no longer look as though they are handling radioactive isotopes, and when we can go and see our loved ones in care homes, and when we no longer have to greet each other by touching elbows as in some giant national version of the Birdie Dance.

“I know the people of this country are going to defeat this virus because I have seen how the country has responded before, with the energy and self-sacrifice of the NHS, the care workers, the armed forces – the spirit that was incarnated in the bounding, boundless devotion of Captain Tom Moore.”

Mr Johnson said that once the crisis is over, the UK cannot go back to how it was before, but must “build back better”.

He said: "After all we have been through it isn’t enough just to go back to normal. We have lost too much. We have mourned too many.   

"We have been through too much frustration and hardship just to settle for the status quo ante – to think that life can go on as it was before the plague.

"And it will not. Because history teaches us that events of this magnitude – wars, famines, plagues, events that affect the vast bulk of humanity, as this virus has do not just come and go. They are more often than not the trigger for an acceleration of social and economic change, because we human beings will not simply content ourselves with a repair job. 

“We see these moments as the time to learn and to improve on the world that went before. That is why this government will build back better.”

Mr Johnson’s speech rounded off a conference that was conducted online after the planned gathering in Birmingham was cancelled due to the pandemic.

He made clear that he believes there was “no reasonable alternative” to the lockdown restrictions and massive state interventions implemented in response to the Covid crisis.

“Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has come up with some brilliant expedients to help business to protect jobs and livelihoods,” said the PM.

“But let’s face it, he has done things that no Conservative chancellor would have wanted to do except in times of war or disaster.

“This government has been forced by the pandemic into erosions of liberty that we deeply regret, and to an expansion of the role of the state – from lockdown enforcement to the many bail-outs and subsidies – that go against our instincts.

“But we accept them because there is simply no reasonable alternative.”