The UK faces a 'pretty miserable winter' - but not because of the re-emergence of coronavirus, experts have predicted.
The government has been forced to delay its plans to lift all restrictions by four weeks due to rising numbers of positive cases.
And Greater Manchester continues to be among the places with the highest infection rates in the country.
Hospital admissions due to Covid-19 have also started to rise, although they remain comparatively low compared to earlier in the pandemic.
The government says that delaying the lifiting of restrictions will allow more people to be vaccinated to combat the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus.
But looking to the long-term, experts say further lockdowns might be required regardless.
Professor Calum Semple, member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which advises the Government, says new respiratory viruses are likely to hit the population harder than usual towards the end of the year.
Children and elderly people will be particularly vulnerable, he fears.
On Sunday morning, Professor Semple told Times Radio: "I suspect we'll have a pretty miserable winter because the other respiratory viruses are going to come back and bite us quite hard. But after that, I think we'll be seeing business as normal next year.
"There's a sting in the tail after every pandemic, because social distancing will have reduced exposure, particularly of pregnant women and their newborn babies, they will have not been exposed to the usual endemic respiratory viruses.
"The protection that a pregnant woman would give to their unborn child has not occurred.
"So we are going to see a rise in a disease called bronchiolitis, and a rise in community acquired pneumonia in children and in the frail elderly, to the other respiratory viruses for which we don't have vaccines.
"So that's why we're predicting a rough July, August and then a rough winter period."
Professor Semple called it the "fourth wave winter" but added it would be much milder than the previous ones.
Dr Susan Hopkins, the strategic response director for Covid-19 at Public Health England (PHE) also warned of a possible rise in cases at the end of the year.
She told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show: "We may have to do further lockdowns this winter, I can't predict the future, it really depends on whether the hospitals start to become overwhelmed at some point.
"But I think we will have alternative ways to manage this, through vaccination, through anti-virals, through drugs, through testing that we didn't have last winter.
"All of those things allow us different approaches rather than restrictions on livelihoods that will move us forward into the next phase of learning to live with this as an endemic that happens as part of the respiratory viruses."
