An expert has warned that "significant" social distancing will most likely be needed to stay until there is a vaccine.
Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London, who is advising ministers, was speaking on Radio 4's Today programme when he said that relaxing the measures could see a "resurgence" of the virus.
He said that as restrictions are eased, more testing will be need to be carried out in order to isolate individual cases and trace their contacts to keep future outbreaks under control.
"Because without that, our estimates show we have relatively little leeway," Prof Ferguson said.
"If we relax measures too much then we'll see a resurgence of transmission.
"What we really need is the ability to put something in their place. If we want to open schools, let people get back to work, then we need to keep transmission down in another manner.
"And I should say, it’s not going to be going back to normal. We will have to maintain some form of social distancing, a significant level of social distancing, probably indefinitely until we have a vaccine available."
His comments come after health minister Nadine Dorries took to Twitter on Wednesday night to suggest the only way the UK can 'exit' lockdown is by having a vaccine available.
She said: "There is only one way we can ‘exit’ full lockdown and that is when we have a vaccine. Until then, we need to find ways we can adapt society and strike a balance between the health of the nation and our economy."
On Thursday morning health secretary Matt Hancock said he agreed with Ms Dorries in the respect that things will not go back to how they were, at least in the short term.
He reiterated that the number of deaths is still "far too high" for any exit strategy to be set out.
He told Sky News: "Well I think what Nadine was saying is the idea that we'll immediately… we'll just switch off all of the measures and return to some kind of… to things exactly as they were – that is not likely in the short-term."
The government is set to formally announce its decision on its lockdown extension today, three weeks after the initial measures were put in place.
Mr Hancock said during yesterday's government coronavirus press briefing that minister would be meeting this morning to agree to prolong the social distancing controls announced on March 23, amid signs the epidemic in the UK is beginning to peak.
This would see the next review take place around May 7.
