A LEADING scientific adviser to the Government has urged caution over the approach to the June 21 easing of Covid-19 restrictions.

Professor Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said while the country's vaccination programme "will ultimately give us ... protection" against the Indian coronavirus variant, key markers in the community should be taken into account before the next phase of reopening.

"I think it's unfortunate that everyone's got this particular date in their head, because really what we need to do is understand how things are going and adjust accordingly," Prof Finn told ITV's Good Morning Britain.

"What we've done wrong in the past is left it too late and delayed making decisions, ultimately pushed them back and then ended up with large waves of infection.

"This time around, we should be cautious, wait to see what's happening, and then let everyone free, if you like, once we know for sure that that's safe and that we can do that without having another round of lockdowns and so on."

Encouraging data has emerged in recent weeks over Covid-19 related hospital admissions but Prof Finn said any impact on admissions brought by the easing of restrictions in May would not be known for many days yet - "around about June 21 or just before that".

Meanwhile Professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) advising the Government, said the UK was in the grip of an "early" third wave of Covid-19 infections which is being spearheaded by the Indian variant.

Asked on BBC Radio 4's Today whether the UK was already in a third wave of coronavirus infections, the University of Cambridge academic said: "Yes, there has been exponential growth in the number of the new cases and at least three-quarters of them are the new variant.

"Of course the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment - all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive, so the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.

"It will probably take longer than earlier waves to emerge because of the fact that we do have quite high levels of vaccination in the population, so there may be a false sense of security for some time, and that's our concern."

Prof Gupta said the unlocking of coronavirus restrictions next month should be delayed "by a few weeks" due to signs the UK is in a new wave of Covid-19 infections.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I think the problem is we are not too far from reaching the sort of levels of vaccination that would help us contain the virus and I think that people are not saying we should abandon the June 21 date altogether but just to delay it by a few weeks while we gather more intelligence and we can look at the trajectory in a clearer way.

"If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay, so I think that's the key thing.

"Yes, we will learn to live with it but this date that was set did not take into account the fact we would have a new variant on the horizon, with properties that allow it to evade antibodies to some extent and a virus which is more transmissible."