'We are over the peak but we're not out of it by a long way', says England's Deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries

Dr Jenny Harries also said visits to the pub should be avoided when social distancing measures are eased.

One of the Government’s top medical advisers has said "we are over the peak but we are not out of it by a long way".

Deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries, was asked about immunity to Covid-19 by a member of the public at the Downing Street daily briefing on Saturday.

She added that officials "don’t have enough information yet" to know whether people can catch coronavirus more than once.

Dr Harries said signs of immunity could vary from patient to patient, but doctors would expect people to have some immunity about a week and a half after being ill.

She explained: "We would normally expect to see some sign of immunity about 10-12 days after an infection, and then a very consistent pattern about 28 days."

Dr Harries also warned that visits to the pub should be avoided when social distancing measures are eased.

Visits to the pub should be avoided when social distancing measures are eased, a medic has warned. Credit: PA

Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick and Dr Harries were asked if mass gatherings would likely be allowed to resume before pubs are permitted to reopen when the lockdown is eased.

Mr Jenrick said it is right to say that the rate of transmission of the virus is “significantly less” outdoors, and when lockdown measures are eased that will be a factor to be considered.

Dr Harries agreed that “generally, outdoor environments are safer”, but said it “depends how you go to your outdoor environment and what you do”.

She said that while being outside - where the virus does not survive as long - is generally safer, people's actions and how they travel to their destination will be important.

Dr Harries also said mixing with friends and others outside your household in a small environment like a pub would "not be a good" idea.

She added: "If you go with a whole load of friends that you haven't seen from before the coronavirus lockdown, sit in a pub in a very small environment, lean well over each other on the table and stay there for some hours face-to-face, that's really not a good thing to do."

"Don't go to the pub on the way is probably the one to reduce your risk, although I recognise that everybody is wanting to do that," she continued.

The government will launch a contact tracing tool that will alert people when they have come near an infected person. Credit: PA

Robert Jenrick revealed more about the government's plans for contact tracing, saying that work on a "multi-faceted strategy with the (NHS) app at its heart," was under way.

The app aims to reduce infection rates by alerting people who may have been exposed to the virus so they can take action to protect themselves.

On how the new track and trace system for coronavirus will work, Dr Harries said: "If somebody has symptoms they take themselves out of society as they would now, but anybody who has been in contact with them – in a very anonymised and safe data-managed way using a phone app – will be alerted."

She added: "To get this up and running at scale and effectively is another significant task but lots of preparation under way."

On how long the system will take to be up and running, Dr Harries said: "We need the whole population to work with us on this, it’s quite an exciting adventure it’s a bit like social distancing, everybody has to do it together to get it to work.”

She added: "We need to be trialling it and we will be doing that very soon."

Coronavirus: Everything you need to know