Britain will probably have the highest death rate in Europe because the Government was "too slow" to act and would need to get through 10 waves of infection in order to develop herd immunity, a leading physician has warned.
Professor Anthony Costello, of University College London's Institute for Global Health, told a committee of MPs that the "harsh reality" is that "we were too slow with a number of things".
He warned that 40,000 people were likely to die in the first wave alone. "If we're going to suppress the chain of transmission of this virus in the next stage we all hope that the national lockdown and social distancing will bring about a large suppression of the epidemic so far - but we're going to face further waves," he said. Do