England’s chief medical officer predicts coronavirus surge if lockdown eased too fast

The public shouldn’t think that the pandemic is over, England’s Chief Medical Officer has warned, as he predicted there would be another surge in Covid cases if lockdown measures were eased too fast.

Professor Chris Whitty said advisers needed several weeks to assess the impact of each step, saying it was easy to forget “how quickly things can turn bad”.

In the latest 24 hour government figures, a further 231 people are sadly reported to have died with Covid, bringing the UK total to 124,797. There have been another 5,766 new cases in the UK.

Some 215,000 people received their first dose of the Covid vaccine yesterday, which means 22.5 million people have now received their first dose of a vaccine.