Britain will experience a third wave of Covid-19 this summer as lockdown is relaxed, a leading scientist advising the government has warned.
Adam Finn, a paediatrician and vaccines expert from the University of Bristol, said Boris Johnson was right to warn yesterday the country must be ready for another rise in cases of coronavirus.
“The models that we’ve seen on JCVI clearly point to a summer surge in cases as the lockdown is relaxed, because there are still many people in the adult population who’ve not been immunised and who will therefore start to transmit the infection between each other,” he told BBC Breakfast.
There remained lots of uncertainty over what kind of spike would occur, because it was unclear how many people would be vaccinated by that point, but it was wrong to believe the pandemic was drawing to a close, he said.
In Germany, MPs are voting on Angela Merkel’s proposed ‘emergency brake’ law which would create a nationwide lockdown protocol for the first time.
Protesters have gathered outside the country’s parliament building in Berlin to oppose the law, with thousands of demonstrators facing off against a heavy police presence.
Currently, Germany’s 16 states have each handled restrictions independently and some have refused to impose tougher lockdowns even as cases soared.
In response, Ms Merkel has proposed creating a nationwide federal law which would kick in when a region tops 100 new cases per 100,000 residents. The restrictions would include a nighttime curfew, limiting personal contact, and closing some kinds of businesses and venues.
Earlier, Air India announced it was cancelling all its flights between the UK and India as the country battles a devastating spike in Covid cases. On Wednesday, India reported more than 295,000 new Covid-19 cases as its daily death toll climbed over 2,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.
Source: Independent.co.uk
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