People in the UK can prevent a third wave of Covid by being cautious and sticking to the rules, according to Good Morning Britain's resident GP Dr Hilary Jones.
He has warned people to remember 'this isn't over'.
The Government has been warned that a third wave could hit the country as soon as June, or could be delayed until the autumn.
A senior member of the vaccine project says there could be 30,000 to 50,000 deaths in the new wave.
Dr Hilary this morning urged people not to get complacent or rely solely on Covid vaccinations, saying people still needed to be careful - amid a rise in cases of new variants in some areas, reports The Mirror.
There have been dozens of cases of the South African variant in London, prompting new mass surge testing.
Dr Hilary told hosts Kate Garraway and Adil Ray: "The pandemic is global, it's going to last a long time, we're gonna be living with it."
He added: "Vaccination is not the sole answer. A lot of scientific experts are saying that while vaccinations have been fantastic, lockdown has been equally fantastic in bringing down rates.
"Some parts of the country are still quite high and rising so there is no place for complacency, we've got to do this through vaccines and social distancing."
Dr Hilary said "If people are behaving responsibly, we will keep this under control. But there will be the risk of another wave if we rely too much on vaccination because we have only vaccinated half of the population or thereabouts.
"We are on track to keeping things under control, but it depends on the behaviour of the population. If we look at what has happened in Israel where they’re way ahead of everybody with the vaccinations, they have seemed to keep the number under control.
"There hasn’t been a spike since the return of children to schools, it's looking really good and it looks as though the vaccination has stopped transmission of the virus very largely.
"However, other parts of the world where vaccinations have been good, Chile for example, you’ve got rising cases again."
Asked why the cases might be on the rise in some areas, he responded: "Well it could well be the new variants, it could be people have thought that it's all over.
"It certainly isn’t, this is going to run and we're going to have to live with the virus for some time. If people want to get back to travelling internationally, or if people want to go back to work full time then they are gonna have to be really careful still."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
