England's chief medical officer warns of quick return of Covid-19 crisis

His statement has come amid government’s decision to lift most pandemic restrictions in England from July 19.

Whitty said that the doubling time for hospitalizations was currently around three weeks, and that low numbers of people in hospital with Covid-19 currently could increase to serious levels over the next couple of months.

"It doesn't take many doublings until we're in actually quite scary numbers again... I don't think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast," Whitty said in a webinar late on Thursday hosted by the Science Museum.

"We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things."

Britain has had among the highest death tolls in the world due tocoronavirus but two-thirds of its adult population has been fully administered the Covid-19 vaccine.