The leading scientist who is advising the government as part of the emerging and emerging Respiratory Virus Risk Advisory Group said he was “hopeful” the country could be a “final lockout”.
His comments came when the Prime Minister was under pressure from Conservative MPs not to delay the timetable for locking down.
Mr Johnson’s “roadmap” for easing England’s third national closure is due in the week beginning 22 February, with 8 March marked for a wide-ranging reopening of schools.
Professor Ferguson, an academic at Imperial College London whose modeling was instrumental in surprising Mr Johnson to put in place the first lock, said the country was “in a better position than expected. a month ago ”.
“The lockout has put things down very quickly,” he told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast this week.
“They’re basically doing about half every 17 days now or so, and that means in a month’s time – the Prime Minister talked about reopening schools, maybe some bandwidth We need to do that, at least in primary schools.
“And if we continue to see then a continued decline without a major breakdown, then perhaps start relaxing other aspects of society next month.”
Dr Ferguson estimated that around a third of the UK population has now developed some immunity to Covid-19, in part because so many people are naturally infected and in part due to the spread of the vaccine.
He acknowledged that it would be a “bumpy road” and that “I would be foolish to try to predict six months” but that he believed the vaccines would begin to allow restrictions to be reduced.
But he cited other scientists by warning that social pace measures need to be slowed to prevent another spike in disease.
“I hope this is the last closure, as long as we are relatively careful to come out of this lock,” said Dr Ferguson.