Three weeks ago the rumors started to spread. Christmas was back on. For five days

between the 23rd and 27th of December, the government will pause coronavirus restrictions.

Three households will be allowed to mix indoors.

But, just because we can, does it mean we should.

All the science points to the fact that spread happens indoors in crowded and ill ventilated spaces.

If you wanted one bottom line finding from everything that's been done,

that's the finding.

Yesterday, the UK approved its first coronavirus vaccine for widespread use.

With the end, now clearly in sight, does the government's plan for Christmas still makes sense.

One of the things that has always stuck in my imagination about the end of the First World War

is that between the armistice being signed and the actual armistice is coming into effect.

In those six hours, some 10,000 people died.

Now, think about Christmas and think about the vaccine in those terms.

We'll hear from one of the psychologists advising the government

to try to understand the dilemmas facing politicians and the public around Christmas.

You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Manveen Rana.

Today, weighing up the options for a COVID Christmas. I'm a social psychologist at the University of St Andrews and I sit on the advisory groups to the UK and Scottish governments.

Steve Reysher sits on SpyB, a committee that advises the UK government on behalf. on measures. Well, I was going to be a doctor. I've probably been more use if I was a doctor.

When I told my mother I was turning down a place at medical school, she wept.

He was on a bus, on the Hill's road in Cambridge, I remember remember that and probably everybody else on the bus

remembers it.

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