Restrictions to remain until COVID-19 pandemic over globally: UK expert

LONDON -- Some restrictions will have to remain in place in Britain until the COVID-19 pandemic is over globally, a British expert warned Saturday.

"We're still going to be living in some form of restrictions -- travel restrictions, border controls -- even when we're vaccinated, until it's over round the world," Clare Wenham, assistant professor of global health policy at London School of Economics and Political Science, told Sky News.

Wenham said even once the whole British population had been vaccinated, Britain would still have to face threats posed by resistant coronavirus variants being brought in from outside.

"This pandemic isn't going to be over until it's over globally," Wenham was quoted by Sky News as saying.

Britain is stepping up its efforts to speed up the vaccine rollout to bring the pandemic under control.

More than 7.8 million people in Britain have received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the latest official figures. Britain aims to deliver a first dose to 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by autumn.

"There's a real imperative to make sure that everybody round the world has at least minimum levels of vaccines at the same time," Wenham told Sky News.

"If we want to return to global systems of trade and travel we need to make sure that the vulnerable globally are vaccinated," Wenham said.

England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.