It all depends on the efficacy of the vaccines. If the vaccines continue to be dispensed and are effective against the variants (which so far seems true), things can get towards normal. But if variants develop that easily evade the vaccines, it will be a huge setback. (While it sounds like it will be easier to develop vaccines against variants than to develop the original vaccines, there would still have to be distribution.) Unfortunately the places in the world where there is high density and low vaccination rates are breeding grounds for variants.
I don't know what it is like in the UK, but in the US we have a surprisingly high vaccine resistance. There are extreme examples of a school refusing to let teachers come back if they got vaccinated for fear that students would somehow get infected with the vaccine
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and of people who refused to wear masks to avoid the virus but are now wearing them to avoid somehow getting infected with the vaccine from those who have had it. Those are obviously outliers, but the resistance to getting vaccinated is definitely affecting the ability to develop adequate herd immunity to rein in the virus effectively.