Britain will not return to normal until next spring at the earliest as the NHS faces a “difficult winter”, the country’s chief medical officer has warned.

Britain will not return to normal until next spring at the earliest as the NHS faces a difficult winter, the countrys chief medical officer has warned.
There will be further waves of coronavirus and the health service is gearing up to face a surge in cases, Chris Whitty told a conference of local government officers.
It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson moved to confirm the lifting of most lockdown measures still in place for July 19.
Prof Whitty also said that ending lockdown restrictions, including social distancing and wearing a face covering, risked a sharp rise in the number of people suffering from long Covid.
Health secretary Sajid Javid has already confirmed government modelling showed new cases of the virus could reach 100,000 a day over the summer.
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Prof Whitty said: I think therell almost certainly be a Covid surge and that will be on top of a return to a more normal respiratory surge.
Its going to take quite a long time I think to get back to a normality and I certainly would be surprised if we got back to what most of us see as a kind of status quo before the next spring.
A woman jogging near City Hall, London, the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown
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An image of Queen Elizabeth II and quotes from her broadcast on Sunday to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London’s Piccadilly Circus
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A pedestrian walks past a billboard reading “Please believe these days will pass” on Broadway Market in east London
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The London ExCel centre that has been turned into a makeshift NHS Hospital and critical care unit to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic
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The Palace Theatre, which usually shows the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue
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The Sondheim Theatre, which usually shows the Les Miserables musical, sits in a deserted Shaftesbury Avenue
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Westminster Bridge is deserted
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He also said that there would still be many who suffered long-term effects of the disease, according to reports in The Times.
I think that people who get the Delta variant and are unvaccinated are likely to have long Covid at roughly the same rates as people of the same age and gender as would have happened in any previous wave, he said.
Since theres a lot of Covid at the moment and the rates are going up, I regret to say I think that we will get a significant amount more long Covid, particularly in the younger ages where the vaccination rates are currently much lower.
We dont know how big of an issue its going to be but I think we should assume its not going to be trivial.