The UK could end up with the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, an expert has warned.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a member of the SAGE committee which advises the Government on Covid-19, said he was "hopeful" the UK was approaching a downturn in recorded infections, but that the overall picture could be worse than in Italy or Spain.
He also said that he believed that treatment and vaccines "are our only true exit strategy" from the outbreak.
He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I do hope that we are coming close to the number of new infections reducing and, in a week or two, the number of people needing hospital reducing, and the number of deaths starting to come down.
"But numbers in the UK have continued to go up. And yes, the UK is likely to be certainly one of the worst, if not the worst affected, country in Europe.”
He said continuing testing in the community would “buy you time” to deal with the crisis, giving an additional six to eight weeks to ensure health systems were up to capacity. “Undoubtedly there are lessons to learn from that,” Sir Jeremy said.
The recorded death toll among Covid-19 hospital patients reached just shy of 10,000 on Saturday, with another 917 deaths taking the total to 9,875, according to Government figures.
Italy is currently the worst-hit country in Europe, with 19,468 deaths recorded so far. Spain recorded its lowest daily rise in Covid-19 deaths for 19 days on Saturday, with a further 510 deaths.
The US is now the worst-hit country in the world, with the number of deaths there now above 20,000.
Sir Jeremy also said it was “probably inevitable” that there would be future waves of coronavirus across Britain without a vaccine in place.
“It is my view that treatment and vaccines are our only true exit strategy from this,” he told the BBC.
“We are determined that we don’t go through this ever again and I think the chances of second and third waves of this epidemic are probably inevitable.
“And therefore having the right treatments to save lives and also having a vaccine in the future is going to be absolutely critical to prevent those second and third waves.”
On the prospect of a vaccine, he added: “The vaccine I think will be available during the autumn of this year but that will not be at the scale required to vaccinate maybe billions of people around the world.
Sir Jeremy also said there was evidence that black and other ethnic communities were more at risk from Covid-19.
He told the BBC: “There is some evidence growing both in the United States and here in Europe that people from BAME backgrounds are more at risk.
“What is critical to work out is whether that is something specific to that background or is it related to other risk factors we know about – age, other illness people have: diabetes, people who are obese have been more affected, people with high blood pressure, people with heart disease, lung disease.”
The medical expert said there had also been “almost 100 reports” of cases in South Korea where people had seemingly re-contracted coronavirus, casting fresh doubt over how long post-infection immunity was thought to last.
“It is critical to understand whether that is one viral infection that has persisted in an individual for a considerable time and has now reactivated or whether they have been infected with a second virus,” said Sir Jeremy.
“Either way, it suggests that immunity perhaps in some people is not complete and that has major ramifications for the ability to make a vaccine and for the community to be protected against future waves.”
