Britain is likely to need to reintroduce some national coronavirus lockdown measures sooner rather than later, a leading epidemiologist and former senior government health adviser has said.

Neil Ferguson, a professor of epidemiology at London’s Imperial College, told the BBC the country was facing a “perfect storm” of rising infections as people return to work and school. “I think some additional measures are likely to be needed sooner rather than later,” he said.

“Right now we’re at about the levels of infection we were seeing in this country in late February, and if we leave it another two to four weeks we’ll be back at levels we were seeing more back in mid-March, and that’s going to — or could — cause deaths,” Ferguson said.