Prime minister Boris Johnson said we will have to live with coronavirus “in one way or another for a long while to come”.

He added: “I think it is an open question as to when and in what way we can start to relax any of the measures and it depends entirely on lots of different things. 

“We will look at things continuously. Obviously we want to do everything we can to open up but only safely, only cautiously.”

Sir Patrick Vallance added: “I don’t think this virus is going anywhere, it’s going to stay around. It’s going to be around probably forever as a virus but it will be controlled and there is remarkable progress occurring now.”

The prime minister has hinted that tougher travel restrictions could be brought in to protect the UK against new variants of the coronavirus.

He told the Downing Street press conference: “We stopped non-UK nationals coming in from South Africa on 24 December and our general policy to the world is that anybody coming in now has to test within 72 hours of flying, you have to produce a passenger locator form.

“You then have to quarantine for 10 days once you arrive or 5 days if you get a second test and we are actively taking some pretty rigorous measures to make sure people do in fact quarantine.

“And I really don’t rule out that we may need to take further measures still. We may need to go further to protect our borders because we do not want after all the effort we’re going to in this country…to put that at risk by having a new variant come back in.”

Asked whether it is likely the current lockdown in England will be extended into the summer, Boris Johnson said “you can’t unlock when rates of infection are so very high”.

The prime minister did not confirm whether the current measures would continue for longer, saying ministers would “look at where we are on [February] 15 and make an assessment”, however he said the current rate of infection is “forbiddingly high and we have to be realistic about that”.

“Unlocking to lead to another rebound would be the wrong way to approach it,” he added.

Sir Patrick Vallance has admitted “the death rate is awful” and said it is going to stay high for some time before it starts coming down.

Sir Patrick said the South African and Brazilian variants are of more concern than the UK variant at the moment because they have features which mean they “might be less susceptible to vaccines”. 

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said people who have antibodies from being infected with the original virus “appear to be equally protected against original virus and new variant”.

Sir Patrick Vallance, using a man in his 60s as an example, said the risk for 1,000 people who get infected, roughly 10 would be expected to die with the virus.

But with the new variant, for 1,000 people infected this rises to about 13 or 14 people expected to die.

He said this would likely be seen across the different age groups as well.

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said the new variant spreading in the UK seems to be about 30 to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original virus and that it does not discriminate against age.

Professor Chris Whitty said the number of people dying after testing positive for Covid continues to rise and will probably get worse over the next week before it starts to fall.

The new variant of Covid-19 spreading in the UK is more deadly, Boris Johnson has warned.

There is evidence that it “may be associated with a higher degree of mortality” among those infected, he told a press conference.

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