There is a 'high chance' that a new Covid variant could be worse than Omicron and that lockdowns are not necessarily a thing of the past. The Government's chief medical adviser Sir Chris Witty made the comments at a virtual meeting of local government officials on Wednesday.
Britain has had a successful vaccine roll-out and booster programme, he said. But we in the UK, and the rest of the world, are still vulnerable to a mutation, LeicestershireLive reports.
Stressing the need to remain vigilant and not becoming complacent, Sir Chris said the virus still has the power to 'throw surprises'. And it will be with us 'for the rest of our lives', he told his audience.
Sir Chris has stated that the UK would likely be hit by seasonal waves of Covid for the next 'two or three years'. That will be 'interspersed' by new variants of varying seriousness and he suggested that lockdowns may not be a thing of the past if such a strain caused a new wave of infections.
He said: "There's a high chance that we will all be discussing and I will be discussing with my colleagues, a new variant at some point in the next two years that actually significantly changes our balance of risk. We could well end up with a new variant that produces worse problems than we've got with Omicron and the Omicron problems are by no means trivial".
Infection rates in Britain remain at more than 100,000 per day recently. However, thanks to high levels of immunity, hospitalisations and deaths are proportionally 'low' at around 200 fatalities a-day.
On the anniversary of the first lockdown two years ago, many are looking forward to a future without having to worry about the virus which has killed 164,123 in Britain, the most in Europe. However, the threat of mutations continues to hang over every epidemiologist monitoring the situation, he said.
