England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty has warned of a 'surge' in coronavirus deaths later this year which could lead to plans to lift lockdown restrictions being pushed back.

He made the comments while addressing MPs during a Covid-19 select committee today this morning.

Mr Whitty was asked why the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had forecast a further 30,000 extra deaths by the summer of next year, despite the success of the Covid vaccine rollout.

He said: "The modelling is just reflecting the fact that, because it is such a common virus and it gets to large numbers of people, even if you have a relatively small proportion of people still remaining vulnerable, that still equates to a very large number of people overall. And that's really what this is reflecting.

"And I think what we are going to see is, as things are opening up, what all the modelling suggests is that at some point we will get a surge in the virus."

Screen grab of the governments chief medical officer Chris Whitty speaking at a Downing Street briefing to explain how the coronavirus is spreading in the UK and the potential scenarios that could unfold as winter approaches..

Chris Whitty

He said that this "surge" could hit later in the summer of this year "if we open up gradually".

Alternatively, he suggested, it could happen during the autumn or winter due to the "seasonal effect".

"I think all the modelling suggests there is going to be a further surge and that will find the people who either have not been vaccinated or where the vaccine has not worked," he said.

"Some of them will end up in hospital and, sadly, some of them will go on to die. That's just the reality of where we are with the current vaccination."

Mr Whitty went on to say that the ration of coronavirus cases to coronavirus deaths would decrease dramatically as a result of the vaccination programme, but it would not stop Covid deaths entirely.

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He said the "great majority", but not all, of the people who will die from Covid-19 will be "either older or have pre-existing health conditions".

As a result of the predicted surge, Mr Whitty cautioned against lifting lockdown restrictions too quickly.

He said: "The first and most important principle that the models demonstrate is, if you open up too fast, a lot more people die - a lot more people die."

He said that opening up too quickly would lead to "very large numbers of deaths". But opening up gradually, as demonstrated in the government's roadmap, would lead to far fewer casualties.

Mr Whitty warned that Covid deaths would not be reduced to zero, and to think this was "unrealistic", but they would significantly decrease if the vaccines did "a very large amount of the heavy lifting".

Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance during a media briefing in Downing Street, London, on coronavirus (Covid-19). Picture date: Wednesday January 27, 2021..

Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance 

England's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, was also quizzed on the government's roadmap during the select committee.

He said the plan was "broadly in line with what the modelling suggests is a way to do it which would be better than going fast and the sequencing of opening outdoor things before indoor things is consistent with the advice that SAGE has given".

And Sir Patrick repeated the government's favoured phrase of "data not dates", saying that time had been left between different stages of the lockdown being eased to observe and understand each action's impacts.

He discussed the potential effects of the reopening of schools yesterday, saying this could increase transmission of coronavirus by between 10 per cent and 50 per cent.

And Sir Patrick also warned that, as a result of this unpredictability, it was currently unknown whether this could result in the roadmap to lifting lockdown restrictions being delayed.