Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warns stay-at-home rules could return in winter

Lockdown measures could be reinforced this winter because the virus will have certain ‘advantages’, the Chief Medical Officer warned yesterday.

Professor Chris Whitty also stressed the country was still only in the middle of the pandemic, not nearing the end.

He pointed out that the virus ‘transmits more easily indoors’ and suggested the infection rates could start to rise again as temperatures dropped and people migrated inside.

Professor Whitty did not elaborate on what ‘combination’ of measures would have to be reintroduced but they could include avoiding seeing other households or closing restaurants and pubs if they have been reopened over the summer.

He told the Downing Street press conference: ‘We all think there is a reasonable chance that, in the winter, this virus will have some advantages it doesn’t have at the rest of the year.

‘It’s something that transmits more easily indoors, for example, and therefore things that are working well in summer and autumn may cease to be working well in winter.

‘We need to know what combination of measures we might have to introduce or reintroduce at that stage to cover a difficult period of the year.’ And Professor Whitty warned: ‘Be very clear, we are not at the end of this epidemic, not by a long shot. We are in the middle of it.’

When asked if he was ‘comfortable’ with the pace at which the lockdown was being eased, he replied that the current approach was ‘reasonable’ as long as the public stuck to the rules.

‘We are obviously having, in Government, to balance a large number of risks… but what you are trying to do is manage those risks as best we can with the information we have to minimise the risk for the bad outcome and to maximise the possibility of a good outcome.

‘But the idea that there is some option that is completely safe and all fine is clearly not true.

‘So what we think is that this is reasonable – provided people hear what the Prime Minister is saying and stick to what [he] is saying and don’t try and extend it out.’

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, said that although the crucial ‘R’ transmission rate was below one across the country, the Government would have to continue to be cautious in how the lockdown was eased.

He said: ‘The R is below one, but perhaps only just below one. The epidemic is shrinking, but not fast. Numbers are coming down but are not yet very low.

‘The vast majority of the population remains susceptible to the infection.’