By UK in “early stages” of Covid-19 third wave, scientist warns
A scientist advising the government has warned that the UK is in the “early stages” of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, and said that the final lockdown restriction easing on 21 June should be postponed.
Professor Ravi Gupta from the University of Cambridge said that although new cases were “relatively low”, the Indian variant had caused “exponential growth”.
On Sunday, the UK reported more than 3,000 new Covid infections for a fifth successive day.
Before this, the UK had not surpassed that number since 12 April.
Environment Secretary George Eustice said the government could not rule out a delay to the planned lockdown easing.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether the UK was already seeing a third wave of Covid infections, Professor Gupta said: “Yes, there has been exponential growth in the number of the new cases and at least three-quarters of them are the new (Indian) variant.
“Of course the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment – all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive, so the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.”
However, he said that because of the number of people who have been vaccinated in the UK, the third wave would probably take longer to emerge than previous ones.
The professor – who is a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) – said ending restrictions in June should be delayed “by a few weeks whilst we gather more intelligence”.
“If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay, so I think that’s the key thing,” he added.
Another leading scientific adviser to the government, Professor Adam Finn, also urged caution over the 21 June date for easing restrictions.
“I think it’s unfortunate that everyone’s got this particular date in their head, because really what we need to do is understand how things are going and adjust accordingly,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“This time around, we should be cautious, wait to see what’s happening, and then let everyone free, if you like, once we know for sure that that’s safe and that we can do that without having another round of lockdowns.”
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