Expert warns ‘further waves’ of coronavirus will hit Britain

Professor Anthony Costello, of University College London’s Institute for Global Health warned on Friday that Britain will be hit with “further waves” of coronavirus.

Professor Costello warned that Britain will most likely have the highest death rate in Europe as the government was “too slow” to act.

He gave evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee on Friday, he said, that the “harsh reality” is “we were too slow with a number of things.”

Professor Costello strongly advised, “If we’re going to suppress the chain of transmission of this virus in the next stage we all hope that the national lockdown and social distancing will bring about a large suppression of the epidemic so far, but we’re going to face further waves.

“And so, we need to make sure that we have a system in place that cannot just do a certain number of tests in the laboratory but has a system at district and community level.”

He told MPs that we “should not have any blame at this stage,” but “we can make sure in the second wave we’re not too slow.”

MPs at the committee were told that healthcare staff are “genuinely concerned” over the safety of their patients, should staff be spread too thinly.

Dr Alison Pittard, Dean at the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine said, “We’ve had to spread ourselves more thinly and we have developed guidance to try and make sure that continues to be safe, but if we have to expand even more and spread ourselves even more thinly, there would be concern that safety could be compromised.

“So, everyone is working really well, we’re doing everything that we can but staff are genuinely concerned.”

Shockingly, Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, told the committee sick NHS workers are being forced to drive two hours away to be tested.

Dame Kinnair urged, “We need some really clear direction on how we can access testing both in the NHS but more so for social care, because they don’t have the same infrastructure as the NHS.”

Professor Neil Fergusson who is the government top scientist advisor accused the government of acting too slowly over mass testing of the population.

Professor Fergusson said mass testing is the only key to ease the lockdown measures as only then will the government know how many people actually have the virus, or are now immune.

The Professor from Imperial College London has called on the government for “decisions to be accelerated.”

His comments come as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said an emergency meeting will be held on Thursday, whereby the lockdown extension will be reviewed.

He said the virus would “run rampant” if there were any hasty decisions on lifting the lockdown too early.

People in the UK have been warned that they will be going no where this year for a holiday in the EU as leader will keep their borders closed until the end of the year.

Ursual von der Leyen, the European Commission President, warned holiday makers not to make any plans during the coronavirus pandemic.