Holidaymakers could have choice of overseas destinations
British holidaymakers could visit destinations including Italy and France this summer if Covid-19 cases there can be driven down to UK levels, a senior scientific adviser has said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, whose modelling work informs Government scientists, said he had not yet booked a break abroad but the risks were focused on countries with higher infection levels than the UK.
It comes after the European Commission said it would ease restrictions on travel to the bloc amid progressing Covid-19 vaccination campaigns and lower infection rates .
The EU is proposing "to allow entry to the EU for non-essential reasons not only for all persons coming from countries with a good epidemiological situation, but also all people who have received the last recommended dose of an Euauthorised vaccine".
Theukgovernment's"green list" of countries to which people can travel without having to isolate for 14 days on their return is also expected to be released shortly.
Prof Ferguson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think if for instance, by the summer, infection levels in France and Italy are the same sort of level as they are here, then there's no risk associated with travelling overseas.
"The risk comes from going from a place like the UK with very low infection levels and going to a place with much higher infection levels and therefore having the risk of bringing infection back.
"If the two places are at comparable levels, and that's what the EU is saying, then there is no particular risks associated with travel."
He said the risk of vaccines being less effective in the face of variants was "the major concern" that could still lead to a "very major third wave in the autumn" in the UK.
It was therefore "essential we roll out booster doses, which can protect against that, as soon as we've basically finished vaccinating the adult population, which should finish by the summer," he said.
Prof Ferguson said he was "feeling fairly optimistic that we will be not completely back to normal, but something which feels a lot more normal by the summer".
Agreeing that "everybody would like to safely reopen international travel", he added: "The EU in their statement did have a very strong caveat that they reserve the right to clamp down again if there were variants of concern, and I think that's everybody's concern at the moment across the European continent, that we don't want to see vaccination undermined by things like the South African variant spreading in an uncontrolled manner, but with that one caveat, if we can find ways of reopening international travel which mitigates that risk, then I think everybody would like to be able to have some opportunity to go overseas."
Commenting on the Prime Minister's view that the onemetre plus rule on social distancing could be scrapped in June, Prof Ferguson said it was a political judgment on how much infection was acceptable, given deaths had been driven down.
He said "we do expect transmission and, to some extent hospitalisations and deaths, to tick up in late summer if we completely go back to normal, but at a much lower level than we saw, for instance, back in December and January".
"So it's obviously a political judgment as to what is acceptable in terms of number of infections, but we don't see any prospect of, for instance, the NHS being overwhelmed - with the one caveat around variants I've already mentioned - so it's always a matter of judgment." He said there would need to be "much higher levels of infection in society in order to risk overwhelming the NHS and we think that's actually unlikely to happen unless a variant comes along which resets that relationship again."
Prof Ferguson stressed that his team still do have some concerns about late summer and early autumn but "they're diminishing", particularly in light of new data showing the effect of vaccines on transmission of the virus.
"And so that has pushed our estimates of the scale of any potential autumn wave down," he said.
Meanwhile, Portugal's secretary of state for tourism, Rita Marques, said the country is "taking the lead" at the European Council in negotiations aimed at opening up the European union touk holiday makers.
She told BBC Breakfast: "We are really pushing hard to open up to third countries like the UK."
But International Trade Secretary Liz Truss urged people to wait for an announcement from the UK'S travel taskforce, telling Sky News: "I would encourage people to wait until we make that announcement so that we can see exactly what the details are, based on the data, because what we don't want to be doing is reimporting this virus after we've done such an excellent job in getting the levels down in the UK... we need to be cautious and we need to make sure that we're not simply importing the virus after we've successfully dealt with it in Britain."
Professor Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews and a member of the sub-committee on behaviour al science which advises the scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies( Sage ), said the public should take the Prime Minister's announcement that social distancing could be scrapped in June with a" little bit of a pinch of salt ". he toldbbc breakfast that "things can change very rapidly ".
demand for mental health services, continuing to deliver the largest vaccination programme the UK has ever seen, and addressing a backlog of treatment that could extend to nearly seven million people by the end of 2021.
"As 78 per cent of the health and care workforce is female, the burden of overcoming these gargantuan challenges will mostly fall on the shoulders of women."
But the group warned that the "pressure and expectation of self-sacrifice created by the pandemic has gone on for too long and cannot continue at the same level".
Some 903 health and care staff mainly from the NHS completed its latest survey, which found a "marked deterioration" in physical and emotional wellbeing.
Participants in the survey included nurses, doctors, managers, administrative staff, and allied health professionals.
It found more than 80 per cent of female respondents said their job had a greater negative impact than usual on their emotional wellbeing as a result of the pandemic, with 65 per cent saying the same for their physical health.
Both are rises from when the survey was previously carried out over summer 2020.
This lends weight to concerns that the sector could see an exodus of staff due to the pressure they experience, the HCLWN said.
Samantha Allen, HCWLN chairwoman, said: "We need to see tailored support specifically for the needs of female staff and this should include recruitment, retention, flexible working and career progression.
"We are concerned that if these issues are not addressed, it could intensify the impact on our workforce at a time when the NHS can ill-afford to lose any more staff.
"We are worried the impact of Covid-19 could set the NHS back further when we want to create the conditions where our workforce is valued and all can progress in their careers, particularly those who work less than full time."
Rebecca Smith, managing director of NHS Employers, added: "Much of the responsibility for caring outside work falls to women, and for NHS staff, this is alongside the additional pressures they have faced working through the most challenging year most of them will have ever experienced.
"We need additional investment from Government, coupled with the existing and ongoing direct support by health and care organisations, to make sure the female workforce is properly looked after."