How we care for young, vulnerable and aged defines our society, says Sheffield health boss

Longer term, the Government still has to address the long term sustainably of care homes, says Graham Moore

However, the resumption is essential for the morale and wellbeing of our children, as the long-term effects of their isolation is not yet quantified, let alone the deficit in their education.

There is also an economic impact, where many parents have had to balance home childcare/schooling and having to work from home, without the opportunity to attend their normal places of work.

While this has been justified on safety grounds, as lockdown eases this in turn may create long-term mental issues with staff denied normal face-to-face collaboration opportunities with other colleagues .

Empty workplaces also have an negative economic impact of adjacent businesses who feed off them for their trade.

Additionally, some employees have found working from home has become embedded and improved their work-life balance, proving so convenient they would be reluctant to resume their previous work patterns.

This may precipitate discussions to mutually agree more flexible patterns of work which may well become the new normal.

As we enter autumn, we have to hope we are all better prepared if there is more coronavirus and that locally our test-and-trace capabilities are robust to cope and the flu vaccination programme helps in mitigation.

Certainly it seems wearing masks will still be a way of life for foreseeable future.

We came into this lockdown with some disturbing news about care home deaths and hopefully lessons have been learnt and preventative measures well established before the onslaught of colder weather.

Longer term, the Government still has to address the long term sustainably of care homes, whose costs with have increased with personal protective equipment, staffing and Insurance etc. increased as result of Covid-19.

Hopefully the need to do this which been well publicised is matched by some early resolution of it.

We cannot have an unnecessary spike in care home deaths this winter and a further delay in producing solutions to the provision of long-term care that meets both needs of providers and users.

Let us hope the coronavirus vaccine is not too far way, In any event, a civilised society is defined how it looks after the young, vulnerable and aged.

Let us hope we as society prove worthy of that.