Expert warns UK second coronavirus wave could be ‘more severe’

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty has warned that a second wave of coronavirus could be “more severe” than what we have already seen.

Should a second wave arrive, it could spread more rapidly amongst people across the UK in the winter months.

Professor Whitty said, countries that are looking to ease lockdown measures must negotiate an “extremely difficult balancing act” to keep control of the virus.

Professor Whitty said the “R” number must be kept below one, which means each infected person would pass it on to fewer people than one other person.

He said, “We need to make sure that R does not go back above one. Because if not we will go back to a second wave.

“It is entirely plausible for a second wave to actually be more severe than the first if it is not mitigated.

“Every country has got an extremely difficult balancing act, and we all need to be honest about the fact there are no easy solutions here.

“Covid-19 is a very long way from finished and eradication is technically impossible for this disease.”

The Professor mentioned unknown over coronavirus and said, “There may be a seasonal element to this, we don’t know, it’s too early with this virus.”

He added, “It’s not just in Game Of Thrones that winter is always coming, it is also true in every health service.

“It may be that there’s a seasonal element and if so, for most respiratory viruses, they are more likely to be transmitted, there is a higher likelihood of transmission, in the winter.

“The winter is always worse than summer, spring and autumn for health services, and we need to think about this in terms of how we come out for the next phase.”

Professor Anthony Costello, of University College London’s Institute for Global Health warned last month that Britain will be hit with “further waves” of the virus.

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

He gave evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee saying, 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.”