This time, dreams of normality are treated as ‘dysfunction’, as a species of ‘denial’. What makes this concerted erasure of expectancy even more striking is that we are in the middle of the most impressive rollout of vaccination in human history. In the UK, thanks to an army of health workers and volunteers, we have vaccinated more than 10million people. The early evidence suggests vaccination protects against serious illness and very likely stems the spread of Covid-19, too. And yet even in this moment, even during this extraordinary campaign of human ingenuity against nature’s whimsical, destructive viruses, much commentary has turned against the aspiration to normality, against the dream of restored liberty.