The tough lockdown measures imposed on Britain could last until May, a senior government adviser has admitted.

Prof Neil Ferguson said the restrictions would stay in place until the number of cases rapidly declined.

“I don’t think anyone wants to lift measures at the current time and risk the epidemic getting any larger - so we will be driven by the data and the trends that we see," he told Radio 4's Today programme, adding: “If we start to see a rapid decline of cases then of course the government will consider whether they can relax measures or maybe change or modify certain measures in a way that is safe and still ensures that the epidemic goes down.”

“We don’t have all the answers but clearly we want to move to a situation where at least by the end of May that we are able to substitute less intensive measures more based on technology and testing with the complete lockdown we have now.”

The professor, who has been assisting the Government's coronavirus strategy, acknowledged that the current lockdown measures have reduced the number of non-essential social interactions.

He said: "It looks like there has been about an 85 per cent drop in the typical movements - that being social movements outside the household. Which is excellent news and that’s what we need but I would say the key issue we are trying to understand at the moment is how fast the epidemic will fall and that isn’t completely clear."

He also added that Britain's path to recovery remains uncertain

"We expect it to plateau really in the next week to ten days. It's hard to be more precise than that but then we can see two possible options."

“A very slow plateauing and decaying of infections over time and demand on the health care system or perhaps a rather faster one. What is critical to determine that will be how do people behave, how much do they restrict their movements outside the household, their contact with others. It is quite finely balanced at the current time."