Professor Ravi Gupta, who sits on the NERVTAG subgroup, urged No10 to push back the crucial date to allow more people to get vaccinated before ditching all social distancing and mask-wearing rules.
The Cambridge University expert claimed there were early signs the third wave had already begun – after daily infections breached 4,000 on Friday for the first time in nearly two months – and warned it could become ‘quite explosive’ over the next few months. During a round of interviews this morning, Environment Secretary George Eustice said the Government ‘couldn’t rule anything out’ when asked if the June 21 unlocking could be delayed. He insisted a decision would be made in a fortnight’s time when ministers will know more about the Indian strain’s effect on hospital rates.
Professor Gupta said the jab rollout was giving people a ‘false sense of security’ because infection rates were still relatively low, but claimed it was inevitable unvaccinated people would eventually start to fall ill with the highly infectious strain. The roaring success of the vaccine programme has seen almost 40million adults given at least one dose of the jab and 25million fully inoculated. But it leaves more than 5million Britons over-50 either unvaccinated or only partially protected.
Professor Gupta’s comments were echoed by SAGE professor Susan
Michie, who warned Britain was on a ‘knife-edge’ as it approached the
June 21 deadline. The University College London behavioural scientist,
who sits on the SPI-B committee, said said fully opening the country as
planned could lead to a serious spike akin to the second wave in the
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