I think it’s fair to say I really hope 2021 turns out a lot better than 2020. I’m tempted to say it could hardly be any worse but the way things have been going, it could end up being much, much worse.

A combination of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, the yet unseen effects of a truly terrible free trade agreement with the EU and a shambolic government that has proven time and again it couldn’t organise the proverbial in a brewery doesn’t exactly fill me with boundless optimism for the year ahead.

But I do have a vested interest in things getting better. I have an overwhelming desire not to be struck down by Covid-19 and I really want to go on holiday in 2021 after having to cancel my trip to Mallorca in 2020.

So do we have any hope as we go into the New Year? Uncharacteristically for me, I really think there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. It comes in the shape of the vaccines that could give us all our lives back individually as well as for society in general. And hopefully, successful vaccines could allow the economy to start functioning properly again.

I honestly think things will be different post-pandemic and it will be interesting to see just how different the ‘new normal’ will be.

I wonder if town centres will ever be able to recover or has on-line shopping finished them off for good? Will all those people who have successfully worked from home throughout the pandemic (you can include me in that) ever return to their offices?

From a purely selfish point of view, I’m more than happy working from home and hope to never again have to commute. The plusses of home working greatly outweigh the minuses. No, I’m not missing office banter in the slightest although I can’t pretend I’m a fan of Zoom meetings and actually went out of my way to avoid the overly jovial and somewhat forced virtual office Christmas party.

Anyway, I digress. My hopes for next year rest on the vaccines that we already have and, at the time of writing, those that are being assessed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The game-changer will be the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine for a number of reasons. Firstly, the government has bought 100 million doses which is more or less enough to vaccinate the adult population of the UK with two doses each. If you then add in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines plus all those still in development, everyone in the country should get a vaccine. Happy days.

This can’t come soon enough for me. I’d have been happy to get a phone call asking me to go in at 4am on Christmas Day for my jab. But apparently, not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the vaccine to the point that one group of GPs has had to publish information on its website dispelling some of the myths surrounding them.

Now I’ve seen some of these stories on social media but dismissed them as crank nonsense. But I’m happy to see CHAW Primary Care Network, comprising Alderley Edge Medical Practice, Chelford Surgery, Handforth Health Centre, Kenmore Medical Centre and Wilmslow Health Centre, have taken these absurd claims seriously enough as the network prepares to start delivering the Pfizer vaccines to at-risk people in the New Year.

It has to be said that these whacky claims owe their existence to either accidental or deliberate misinformation on social media and not on any credible science.

Let’s just take a look at what some people are prepared to believe, shall we?

Can the Pfizer vaccine alter your DNA? No, it can’t.

Does the vaccine contain microchips that will be able to track your movements? There are no microchips within any vaccine used in the UK. (To be honest, it would be quite remarkable if science had evolved to the point where a personalised, fully functional microchip could be included in a vaccine.)

Can the vaccine cause infertility? No.

Will the vaccine give me Covid? No. None of the vaccines contain the coronavirus or parts of the coronavirus.

Are the vaccines derived from aborted foetal cell lines? No.

Do the vaccines contain pork? The Covid-19 vaccines do not contain any animal products or egg. (It is true that some flu vaccines are cultivated in eggs which is why you are asked if you are allergic to eggs when you go for your flu jab.)

Full answers to all these questions and more can be found at wilmslowhealthcentre.com.

As I said earlier, I will be there like a shot when I get the call for my coronavirus jab in the hope I can get my life back but I realise that not everyone agrees me.

So if you are prepared to follow the ‘advice’ of some anonymous crank on Facebook that your mum forwarded, that’s your decision. And good luck to you.

And by the way, have a healthy and happy New Year.