Scientist says new wave of Covid is certain

It is “inevitable” that there will be a new wave of Covid-19 infections, an expert has warned.

Professor Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said face coverings and some sort of social distancing may still be needed if there is a new wave of infections later this year.

It came as experts said it could take a few years to get back to normal life and scientists predicted a fresh wave of coronavirus cases will hit the UK.

Documents from the Government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) group have been published which suggest an increase in hospital admissions and deaths is “highly likely” during the later stages of the UK’s road map out of lockdown.

Prof Hunter said: “I think it is inevitable that we will see another wave of infection because that’s how coronavirus behaves.

“There are other coronaviruses that we’ve been living with for decades and they generally come in waves every two or three years.

“Vaccines reduce the risk of transmission but they don’t totally prevent transmission.

“And vaccine alone isn’t enough to bring the R value below one.”

Speculating on what a new wave of infections could look like, he said: “Current vaccines are really quite good at preventing severe disease – at least 80% after the first dose and probably closer to 90%95% after the second dose.

“Therefore the ratio between cases and severe diseases and deaths that we saw last year won’t be repeated.

“And we will see far fewer severe cases and deaths than we saw last year.”