Britain will not be able to relax its stringent lockdown rules until the end of May, a leading government adviser has said, warning that first the spread of coronavirus must slow and intense testing must be introduced.
Neil Ferguson, a leading professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, said work was underway to establish how more relaxed rules could be introduced in time. "We want to move to a situation where at least by the end of May that we're able to substitute some less intensive measures, more based on technology and testing, for the complete lockdown we have now," he told BBC Radio. "There is a great deal of work underway to look at how we can substitute some of the very intense social distancing currently in place