'Science-led'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52849691
Coronavirus: Relaxing lockdown 'risky' and 'political decision'
Relaxing lockdown is a risk because levels of the coronavirus are still at "very high" levels, one of the government's top science advisers says.
Prof John Edmunds said it was a "political decision" to lift lockdown and that "many" scientists would wait.
The warning comes as Sage, the scientists advising government, publish details of their confidential meetings.
One meeting on 23 April estimated there would be only 1,000 cases per day by mid-May.
Instead, estimates by the Office for National Statistics suggest there are currently 8,000 cases per day in England alone. Those figures don't include cases in care homes or hospitals
"Many of us would prefer to see the incidence down to lower levels before we relax measures," Prof Edmunds, from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, said.
Newly-published Sage documents also warned of the dangers of having high numbers of cases.
They say this would "give little time to re-impose more stringent measures" if the infection rate (the R-number) started to increase.
And
The documents also show that only half of people are isolating for seven days when they become sick.
This comes as testing and contact tracing will require anyone who comes into close contact with an infected person to isolate for 14 days, even if they do not become sick
Behavioural scientists advising government "strongly recommend" monitoring how well people were keeping to the rules.
Sage documents showed keeping the R number below one (the point at which the epidemic starts to grow again) would require 80% of contacts to be found within 48 hours.
The scientists agreed that social distancing would need to be maintained even if test and trace was effective.
However, the government's testing tsar said it would be "very difficult" to get the results of home tests in less than 48 hours, never mind find their contacts. Tests at drive-through centres are faster.