Here LAST YEAR

An Ayr scientist helping to lead the coronavirus fight reckons the deadly bug was in Britain last YEAR.

Peter Mackie believes the killer had crept across our borders long before its March outbreak.

And he admits that only a vaccine will offer the public any hope of a return to “normal life”.

Peter, a retired virologist, was called back on to the frontline to establish a virus testing centre down south.

The lab at the James Cook University Hos p i t a l i n Middlesbrough is one of the key testing units in the north east.

Speaking to the Post this week, he said: “We were slow off the mark in this country, I don’t think there is any doubt about that.

“And increasingly, there are studies showing us that coronavirus could have been here as far back as December.

“Back then you had patients presenting with pneumonia, and what they probably had was the virus.

“But we didn’t get our act together on this until March. We weren’t testing at any kind of level until then, and by that point the virus was well underway. “The information coming out of China probably wasn’t the whole story and it left many countries caught out.” Dad- of- two Peter knows better than most the science behind trying to stop a virus.

And he warned: “There’s a very clear difference between coronavirus and the common flu. With the flu, it burns itself out in the summer as people get it. “Here, we are in lockdown and more than 90 per cent of the population has yet to be exposed. That is why, until a vaccine is found, social distancing will have to stay with us. Without that, a second wave just becomes inevitable.”

But Peter offered hope that despite Britain’s shocking death toll – now the highest in Europe – it could be first to crack the virus conundrum.

He said: “There is huge effort behind the scenes to develop a vaccine in this country. It will take time, clearly, but there is real hope that we could lead the way on it.

“Getting the vaccine is ultimately the way out of this. Things like large social gatherings and sporting events are a long way off without it.”

Peter, 59, a former consultant at Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Sick Kids, added: “A country like South Korea has been very successful in keeping deaths down. They were so good at identifying cases, doing the contact tracing and isolating.

“We are going down that road now but people will need to use the technology and stick with it.

“It will be a collective effort from everyone to get through this.”

Studies are showing coronavirus could have been here in December