The UK needs to be prepared to live with coronavirus for "several years", England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam has warned.
Speaking at Downing Street's daily press conference Professor Van-Tam appeared to caution against hope raised over the weekend about a vaccine.
He said: “Maybe people are just hoping and praying this virus will just go away as indeed I hope and pray it will.
“But the reality is that certainly until we get a vaccine, and only if we get a vaccine that is really capable of suppressing disease levels, will we ever be what we would call ‘out of this’.
“We may have to learn to live with this virus in the long term and certainly for many months to come, if not several years.
“A vaccine may change that but we can’t be sure we will get a vaccine.”
He added it is “not clear” that coronavirus recede in summer as much as the flu, but there “may be an element of seasonality”.
He added: “It may well be that the autumn and winter conditions provide a better environment for the virus to then do its work again.
“So we have to be very cautious about that and plan for these kind of healthcare surges.”
Asked about children's an the virus, Professor Van-Tam said that while the data is “pretty sparse at the moment”, initial findings appear to be that children transmit coronavirus less than adults.
He added: “The experts have already had a look at this and formed a conclusion that unlike influenza, where we are very clear that children drive transmission in the community to adults, it really does not seem to be the same kind of signal with Covid-19 - that children are not these kind of big, high output transmitters as they are with flu.”
He said emerging data suggests the rate at which children become infected is “about the same as in adults, possibility a little lower in the younger children”.
But when they do get Covid-19 it’s usually a “much more mild” disease than in adults, he added.
Yesterday ministers confirmed that there are in place to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to 30 million people by September if trials are successful.
Mr Hancock also announced everyone aged five and over is now eligible to be tested for coronavirus if they are showing symptoms, which have been expanded to included a loss of taste or smell.
He also confirmed that 21,000 people had been recruited for the Government's track and trace regime.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock drastically increased the number of people who can get tested for Covid-19 across the UK on Monday, with the Government trying to track the spread of the disease in order to ease the lockdown.
His announcement in the House of Commons came after the chief medical officers added the loss of, or noticeable change to, taste and smell to the NHS's list of coronavirus symptoms, weeks after experts first raised concerns that cases were being missed.
Anyone suffering the newly-added symptoms, or a continuous cough or high fever, should self-isolate for seven days to risk the spread of infection, and anyone they live with should stay home for 14 days.
Previously only essential workers, the over-65s and individuals who live with them could apply for coronavirus testing on the NHS website if they were showing symptoms.
But Mr Hancock told MPs that this was being expanded with immediate effect.
"I can announce to the House that everyone aged five and over with symptoms is now eligible for a test," he said.
"That applies right across the UK in all four nations."
