Whitty: I’d be surprised if crisis is over by next spring

BRITAIN is in it for ‘the long haul’ with coronavirus and will be living with it well into next year, the Chief Medical Officer warned last night.

In a grim forecast, Professor Chris Whitty said he would be ‘surprised and delighted’ if the country was not still battling the disease in the spring.

He also stressed ministers may have to reverse some of the latest moves to relax lockdown if they are found to be too risky. Asked whether the Government’s top scientists had approved the new measures, Professor Whitty replied that the ‘job of advisers is not to sign things off, it is to give advice’.

Addressing yesterday’s Downing Street press conference – the last of the daily televised briefings – the professor also revealed his ‘biggest worry’ was patients ignoring their symptoms – or warnings from conlegislation. tact tracers.

‘I would be surprised and delighted if we weren’t in this current situation through the winter and into next spring,’ Professor Whitty said.

‘I expect there to be a significant amount of coronavirus circulating at least into that time and I think it is going to be quite optimistic for science to come fully to the rescue over that kind of timeframe.

‘For medium to long-term, I’m optimistic. But for the short to medium-term, until this time next year, certainly I think we should be planning for this for what I consider to be the long haul into 2021.’ Professor Whitty went on to warn that there would be a

Warnings: Professor Whitty resurgence in infections if the public failed to take the latest measures seriously. ‘If people hear a distorted version of what’s being said, that says “this is all fine now, it’s gone away” and start behaving in ways that they normally would have before this virus happened, we will get an uptick for sure. It is absolutely critical people stick to the guidance that has been given... there are still very significant restrictions socially and there are very significant restrictions on business of different sorts.’

Of changes to the twometre rule – which will see it halved to one metre in many circumstances – he said: ‘I think this is a reasonable balance of risk but... it’s absolutely not risk-free.’ Professor Whitty also expressed concerns that not enough patients were reporting their symptoms to the Government’s test and trace programme.

‘The biggest thing I worry about, if I’m honest, is that people don’t report that they have got symptoms... and then, if someone is contacted by NHS test and trace, that they don’t engage properly with that process,’ he said.

‘By reporting when people have got symptoms, getting a test and – if it’s positive – isolating, that is a huge service to the rest of society because that is the way that we ensure people who have got the virus or might have the virus get out of circulation temporarily... and that reduces the risk to absolutely everybody.’