It’s been a tough and difficult year for most of us because of the effects of the unprecedented pandemic we have all suffered. But of course, there are degrees of difficulty.

I consider myself massively fortunate that I’ve been able to work from home since before the first official lockdown was announced in March last year.

I have had the odd pay cut and furlough to help out my company over a difficult time when revenue fell off a cliff, but on a personal level, my reduced income has been offset by not having to pay to commute into work.

And another unexpected bonus is I’ve not had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch a train into Manchester. Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not a ‘morning person’ so those extra hours in bed are a real boon.

And I’ve not had to juggle work, childcare and home schooling. I feel really sorry for those who are again struggling with that.

I have missed social contact and I think it’s fair to say that life can be described at best as dull.

But there is more for me to worry about. Because of my age, I am in one of the groups considered at risk of having a ‘negative outcome’ if I contract coronavirus, and that anxiety is fairly constant and pervasive.

Having said all that, I fully realise that in the great scheme of things, many people have had it much worse than me.

My heart goes out to anyone who has lost a loved one because of Covid-19 and I was unemployed for six months in the summer before the pandemic so I have great sympathy for anyone who hasn’t been able to work because of Covid or worse, have lost their jobs.

On the unemployment front, sadly I think things will get worse before they get better as the government’s support for businesses and employees start to unwind later in the year. As one commentator put it: “Because of the furlough scheme, there are millions of people who are technically redundant, they just don’t know it yet.”

The furlough scheme is due to finish at the end of April and unless Chancellor Rishi Sunak extends it, the chances are companies that took government-backed loans, deferred paying VAT and business rates and negotiated payment ‘holidays’ with their landlords will find themselves having to stump up a load of cash and will probably have to make furloughed staff redundant in an attempt to cut costs.

At some point in the future – hopefully sooner rather than later – there will be an independent public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic.

And while there are many, many things it got wrong, credit where it’s due, there are a couple of things it most certainly got right.

The furlough scheme has undoubtedly worked and kept people in jobs that would otherwise have disappeared months ago. And it looks like the other great success is the vaccine programme.

Given the government’s absolutely hopeless record on just about every other element of its response to the pandemic, its decision to spread its bets on a range of vaccines when some were little more than a scientific concept now looks inspired.

With a bit of luck, I should be due my jab in less than a month (I’m living in hope that it’s sooner rather than later) but in my opinion the key to the success of the roll-out of the vaccination programme has been because it was left in the hands of the NHS rather than outsourcing it to private contractors.

I know there have been a few bumps along the road but the speed with which the NHS has been able to get the first dose of vaccines into the arms of the most vulnerable is truly breathtaking and provides some light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel for all of us.

The figures are a little dated now but the National Immunisation Management Service data showed that 109,663 people aged over 80 in Cheshire and Merseyside have been given their first jab, representing 81 per cent of the region’s population.

Those figures were to January 24 so the current number will be higher now.

As I said earlier, thank heavens this is being handled by the HNS and not an outsourcing company.

If only test, track and isolate had been done by the experts in the public sector rather than consulting firms and private contractors, perhaps the death toll wouldn’t be as staggeringly high as it is.