A new estimate that more than 100,000 people could die of Covid-19 in the UK later this year has made headlines.

It comes from a modelling study by scientists at Imperial College London and it assesses the risk of one particular scenario.

The researchers assessed what might happen if everyone was released from lockdown apart from the most vulnerable. Only the elderly and people with underlying health conditions would remain shielded.

According to Prof Neil Ferguson from Imperial, in an interview with the UnHerd website, these people were most at risk and were also those who most need support, therefore needing to have some interactions with their carers.

Even if there could be an 80% reduction in the infection risk for that group, his study suggests that would still mean more than 100,000 dying.

It’s worth pointing out that at the moment, the UK government is giving no indication of how or when any lockdown restrictions might be relaxed. And the study itself has yet to be released – that may happen in the coming days.

Whatever its conclusions – and these will be hotly debated – the work provides another reminder of the threat from the virus and the extreme difficulty of judging how best to ease the measures to tackle it.