Chris Whitty says keeping Covid restrictions will only delay next wave – video

Prof Chris Whitty has warned that maintaining the current Covid restrictions through the summer would only delay a wave of hospitalisations and deaths rather than reduce them, as Boris Johnson announced that most social distancing and mask rules would be lifted on 19 July.

The chief medical officer for England said: 'At a certain point, you move to the situation where instead of actually averting hospitalisations and deaths, you move over to just delaying them. So you're not actually changing the number of people who will go to hospital or die, you may change when they happen.'

However, Whitty also cautioned that while there was a 'pretty high' level of scientific agreement over the government's decision last month to delay the original lifting of restrictions for four weeks, the view in regards to opening back up is 'more mixed'.

• Chris Whitty: keeping Covid restrictions will only delay wave