Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme this afternoon that the UK could avoid such a spike as it is “further ahead” the current “Delta” Covid wave than other parts of Europe.

He said that he was “not expecting to see the explosive increasing cases that they have seen in parts of Europe recently,” but added that he thought the country must “stay very vigilant and respond to what we see in front of us”.