‘Third wave unlikely this summer’ scientists have admitted

Government scientists have admitted that a third wave of the coronavirus is unlikely to occur this summer, largely because of the warmer weather.

Contrary to earlier forecasting from the Government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) which warned COVID-19 cases could surge this summer if all restrictions were lifted, scientist have conceded that “some big caveats” were made in the modelling due to seasonality.

The models are said to not have taken into account the impact of the vaccine rollout as well as seasonality leading to the SPI-M’s change in tune.

A senior Government scientist told The Telegraph:

“A lot depends on seasonality as well so it may well be that it’s more like autumn than summer. Is that going to be affected by what’s happening in Europe? Well, possibly in the sense that if you get lots of travel coming back and forth that might increase it,”

“I think that the expectation is that there will be further waves, but they won’t be as big as the ones that we’ve had, unless things go badly wrong. Timing, I think it’s more likely to be autumn than summer, but we’ll see.”

The realities will soon be clear as today marks stage 2 of Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of the pandemic. Outdoor dining, non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened after lockdown restrictions were eased today April 12.

Earlier this month the Prime Minister confirmed that the roadmap dates he had initially set out would remain unchanged, with the UK seeing a continuous decline in coronavirus infections since the first lockdown easing on March 8.