A leading Scots scientist has warned that plans for a full lockdown relaxation in June may be ‘over-optimistic’ despite the vaccine rollout success.
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, believes that people will need to be ‘alert’ to coronavirus for years to come.
He said it was likely that social distancing and a full testing programme would still be required throughout the foreseeable future.
Professor Woolhouse also added that vaccine passports for holidays and social settings may be required as part of a wider package of protective measures.
Speaking on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, the scientist said: “I have to say I am a little bit nervous about a full relaxation in June.
"Obviously we all want to relax as far as it is safe to do so and it will be important that the Government continues to be guided by the data in that respect.
"This is the particularly important thing, exactly how well are the vaccines performing? If they are going at this rate, I think we can get quite close to a full release.
"The idea that we can suddenly emerge from this in one great bound, I think, is a little over-optimistic."
He added that people are going to have to be ‘alert’ to coronavirus and the need to self-isolate when exposed will need to continue.
Professor Woolhouse added: "Hopefully, because, as I said, the vaccines are performing so well - certainly against the variants we know about - that we will be fairly close to the herd immunity threshold and what that means is that any outbreaks will be fairly small and, hopefully, fairly easily contained.
"I still suspect that looking forward, and I am talking now right through 2021 and into the years ahead, that we are still going to have to be alert to coronavirus.
"There are still going to be situations where we might need to use personal protective equipment, we might well need to do some kind of social distancing, put some kind of biosecurity measures in place.
"The important thing is, in case I'm being too optimistic and we are not close to the herd immunity threshold, that we also maintain our capacity to test and trace, and particularly to isolate people who are infected.
“That final thing is going to remain important for the entire future, that when we get cases of novel coronavirus that those people are then going to have to be asked to self-isolate and their contacts."
Addressing concerns that vaccine passports are inevitable, the scientist said: “It's certainly something we have to consider seriously as part of a wider package of measures that are designed to make our activities safe."
Prof Woolhouse said that while a lot of workplaces, retail and hospitality can be made safer with measures such as social distancing and screens, passports could be used for nightclubs and mass gatherings.
He added: "Part of the whole point of living with this virus is we have to switch emphasis, we have to now start thinking about how do we make those activities safe.
"We have already made them a lot safer for a lot of people by the rollout of the vaccine but we may also need to have additional measures in place, as I said, social distancing, the screens and so on, for those activities that can be made safer, a lot of workplaces, a lot of retail, a lot of hospitality can be made safer.
"For those activities that it is difficult to make completely safe - I am thinking things like nightclubs, large concerts, mass gatherings - that's where passports come in.
“Whether it is vaccine passports, test negative passports or even immunity passports."
He added that a need for a third lockdown following a spike in cases later in the year would be a failure of public health policy.
"I think that's one of the things we really want to avoid and we absolutely have the tools in place and the knowledge in place to avoid that.
"Another lockdown next winter for any reason, whether it's an upsurge of the local variants that we have here or the importation of a new variant, I have to say I think we should regard that as a failure of public health policy if we have to go that route again,” he said.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
