Britain’s Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance attends a press conference to outline the Government’s new long-term Covid-19 plan
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)The threat of the next variant which evades immunity “remains large”, Sir Patrick Vallance has warned.
Speaking at the Royal Society conference on Thursday, the UK’s chief scientific advisor said the pandemic is “not over” as case rates continue to remain high across the country.
Although restrictions have been lifted, Sir Patrick said: “It’s very obvious to everyone in this meeting that there will be a future pandemic. That I think is clear.
"What’s it is going to be, we have no idea. It’s also clear this one is not over and we’ve got very high infection rates at the moment.
"And the room for this virus to evolve remains very large, so we could be taken by surprise again with a variant that escapes immunity."
A total of 2,330 inpatients on Wednesday had tested positive for the virus but only about 26 per cent were in hospital “primarily” because of Covid, according to NHS England statistics published on Thursday.
The remainder were receiving treatment for another condition but they were found to also have the virus.
Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, also admitted infections were at “a very high level” but there was not a “significant translation” into serious illness or death earlier on Thursday.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There has been a small up-tick in deaths in the last week and again. Some hospitals are coming under significant pressure and we shouldn’t underestimate that.
“But overall, immune defences through the vaccination programme has been really successful and of course we now have treatments.”
