London: British scientists said that the country is bracing for a “pretty miserable winter” with the possibility of further lockdowns due to the likely emergence of new respiratory viruses.
British government advisory body, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) member, Professor Calum Semple said that children and elderly people will be particularly vulnerable to endemic viruses, Xinhua reported.
Semple described it as the “fourth wave winter,” during his chat with 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,” Semple was quoted as saying by agency reports.
Meanwhile, Public Health England’s director for COVID-19, Susan Hopkins warned, “we may have to do further lockdowns this winter.”
“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,” Hopkins was quoted as saying by BBC.
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