If the pandemic has taught us anything - other than that working from home has pros and cons, especially if you're a parent trying to home school during a lockdown - it's that most of us are terrible at judging risks.

Covid and its connected rules and consequences - like face masks - have, predictably, also become a political battleground; an opportunity to score points by lobbing cluster bombs of mortality statistics across socially-distanced parliament buildings. Smug parliamentarians point to other countries that "have done so much better", only to drop the example when an outbreak later spawns there.

Throughout, we've been "guided by the science", as politicians are fond of telling us. And what the science is now showing is that the Covid vaccines - that have been developed and administered in record time and, in the UK's case, administered to over 95% of some sectors of society - work outstandingly well.

This is reflected in the mortality statistics where cases are now ceasing to have consequences on anything like the scale they did before. Yes, some people are still catching Covid, just as people downstream of a flu jab still often succumb to flu, yet despite the encouraging results we seem to be rooted to the spot, waiting for someone to say "it's all over" before we dare do anything.

But here's the reality: if you're waiting for a Covid-free world, you'll be standing in line for a very long time.

Hopefully the wake-up call that reminded us about work-life balance will stick. Employers and employees alike will undoubtedly embrace some of the benefits of home working; and, I pray, the fact that we've told every A level student that they are brilliant at everything won't send too many careering off in the wrong direction for too long.

Read the full article about traversing the COVID-19 terrain by Chris Smith at Science Podcast and Science Radio Show.