More than 100,000 people could die this year if the coronavirus lockdown is lifted so only elderly and vulnerable people are shielded, an expert advising the government has said.

Professor Neil Ferguson said he was "very sceptical" that a scenario where the younger population resumed a normal life would be a "viable strategy".

He said it would require "a very high level" of effective protection for the vulnerable and elderly population, who are also the "least able to really be truly isolated".

Speaking to news outlet UnHerd, he said: "The most vulnerable people are also the people who most need care and have most interaction with the health system and are least able to really be truly isolated.

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"And if you achieve just 80% shielding, 80% reduction in infection risk in those groups, we'd still project you get well over 100,000 deaths later this year through that sort of strategy."


Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London, was the lead author of a report that said the pandemic could kill 250,000 people if the government did not enforce social distancing.

He said his team was now working on a model for easing the lockdown and would release details in the coming days.

He warned that life "cannot go completely back to normal" and that social distancing would need to remain until a vaccine is developed - something Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said will not happen until at least next year.

"There will be a trade-off between the extent to which you relax measures and tolerate a level of transmission, and, therefore, mortality and health system demand, versus keeping case numbers as low as you can, which will probably require social distancing longer term," said Professor Ferguson.

He pointed towards the South Korean model of mass testing and contact tracing as "remarkably effective" for monitoring the virus infection rate.

South Korea has reported just 242 deaths to the disease, which is one of lowest rates in the world.

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"I think if you talk to people in Korea, and people in the public health department, they think they have a sustainable strategy," he said.

"They have society not operating as normal - there will have to be social distancing until we have a vaccine... but they have been remarkably effective at basically tracking chains of transmission down and isolating people who are infected.

"And the real benefit of those policies is that if you drive transmission down to the very low levels they now have in Korea, then it's not that disruptive or resource-intensive."

The government has so far remained tight-lipped about its ideas for exiting the lockdown, with Mr Raab telling Sky News it was "not responsible" to openly discuss it at this time.

"We need to make sure that the next steps are sure-footed, which is why we are proceeding very cautiously," he said.