CORONAVIRUS appears to spread less easily outdoors but the UK Government has to be "extremely painstaking" in considering relaxing any lockdown measures, one of its experts has warned.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer, played down the prospect of an imminent return to outdoor activities, saying the virus would return unless a "painstaking" approach was taken going forward.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press briefing, he said ventilation and people being more spaced out contributed to making it harder for the virus to spread.
"There is a definite truism across all of the science literature that ventilation is a most critical part of reducing transmission from respiratory viruses," he explained.
Prof Van-Tam said normal breezes and air currents appeared to quickly disperse "any kind of plumes of anything" around us.
He noted: "So from that perspective, it is absolutely categorically clear outdoor spaces with higher degrees of ventilation are less problematic environments for transmission than indoor spaces."
But when asked whether that could allow for the return of park-run events, the opening of garden centres, beach trips or drinking in pub beer gardens, he warned the virus would return if lockdown measures were not eased very carefully.
"These are complex and, at various different points, they might involve a congregation of individuals and one has to be very painstaking and very careful about thinking through some of these before we make the wrong move to relax measures. We have to be extremely sure-footed and extremely painstaking about this. This virus will absolutely come back."
It was noted during the press conference how Germany had lifted some restrictions, only to see infection rates rise again.
"This is with us for quite some time, potentially for as long as until we get a vaccine," declared Prof Van-Tam. "So, from that perspective we have to be really careful and really sure-footed and I'm not going to suggest for a moment that any of this should be rushed."
Earlier, Boris Johnson held telephone talks with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, on the Government's strategy for phase two. The Prime Minister is expected to hold similar talks with Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, next week.
Expert advisers from the SAGE group are due to give their final advice on lifting lockdown measures to enable Mr Johnson and his colleagues, who will meet virtually tomorrow, to finalise their plans. A Government announcement is due next week to coincide with the May 7 review deadline.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel