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Jeremy Farrar told Sky News that the UK is going into a difficult period of the pandemic as coronavirus cases rise. He warned Christmas this year will be very different, labelling the festive period as “tough” and stating he did not believe that the usual celebrations with families coming together will be able to happen. 

Mr Farrar said: “There will always be people who either don’t respond to the vaccine or for some reason do not receive it and will get sick.

“So we will need treatments as importantly as we will need vaccines, as importantly as we will need public health measures of some degree of physical distancing for a while yet.

“We will need trust in public health and political leadership.

“These things are all part of public health, there is no single magic bullet that will bring this pandemic to an end.

“If you deploy good vaccines, if you deploy good treatments and you keep some degree of the public health measures in place now, this pandemic can be turned around in the next six months, maybe 12 months at a global scale.”

He added: “

“I don’t think Christmas is going to be the usual celebration it is with all families coming together I am afraid.

“I wish we could say it was, but I think we have to be honest and say we are in for three to six months of a very difficult period.”

On Saturday, a SAGE adviser warned the spread of coronavirus is going to spike to the same levels experienced in March.

Robert West, who is a professor in Health Psychology at UCL’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health, called Boris Johnson‘s three-tier lockdown measures “draconian”.

He warned there is no “permanent immunity” to coronavirus and the country has “wasted several weeks” not going into a circuit-breaker lockdown in September. 

Mr West told LBC: “With the levels of restrictions we have at the moment, which are pretty draconian and are ruining the economy, we’ll still see the R value above one.

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“What do we think is going to happen? We’re seeing 150 deaths a day at the moment. What do we think is going to happen if we relax that further?

“It’s going to go up to where it was in March and it’s going to stay there until approximately between 250,000 to 400,000 people have died.

“At the end, this virus is not one where you get it and you get permanent immunity.

“In fact as far as we can tell the immunity lasts no more than a few months, maybe a year or two.

“You’re going to be back where you started in just a few months time.”

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