A government science advisor has said that the UK is at risk of a new coronavirus wave as big as the current one if coronavirus restrictions are lifted too soon. Professor Steven Riley said the vaccine's "incredibly successful" introduction and "incredibly high vast uptake" does not suggest that the nation will easily eradicate steps aimed at preventing the virus from spreading. No vaccine is optimal. They are certainly going to be in the situation where we can allow more infection in the community but there is a limit, explained the SPI-M modelling group member.
If we were to allow a very large wave of infection in the short term, the wave would find all the people who for good reason could not get the vaccine and those people who had the vaccine but unfortunately did not give them the security they need. When asked whether this future wave might be as big as the current one, he expressed that he does not believe anybody expects all the social constraints to be lifted suddenly. If for some reason we were to choose to to just pretend that the coronavirus wasn’t here anymore at some point, then there is the potential to go back to a wave that is a similar size to the one that we are in now.
If we were to choose for some reason to just pretend that at some point it wasn't here anymore, then there's the potential to go back to a wave of the same scale as the one we're in now. Dr Susan Hopkins, the lead coronavirus strategist for Public Health England (PHE), cautioned earlier this week that certain limitations will have to remain in effect until every adult has been vaccinated.