Face masks and some social distancing measures should continue "forever", a top scientist on the
Sage committee that advises the government has said.
Professor Susan Michie said some measures adopted to tackle Covid-19 might be useful for suppressing other viruses like flu.
Likening wearing a mask to wearing a seat belt the UCL professor said people might check they had one with them before leaving the house.
The government plans to end all legal restrictions on coronavirus on 21 June under its Covid roadmap,
“I think there's lots of different behaviours we’ve changed in our lives. We now routinely wear seat belts, we didn’t use to," Professor Michie said.
“We now routinely pick up dog poo in the parks, we didn’t use to she said.
We will need to keep this going in the long term and that will be good not only for Covid, but also to reduce others diseases”.
Asked how long she thought measures might continue, she said: “
I think forever, to some extent.”