Coronavirus in Scotland: Experts say second lockdown 'would allow more testing'

She said: “It might be slightly premature to talk about a second lockdown. I would give it another week or two until a decision is made.

“If the numbers continue to rise, really a lot over the next seven days or so, I think they will introduce more restrictions.

“However if we do have a circuit breaker, say that we shut everything down for two weeks, all that would achieve is delay.

“The virus is not going to go away, you can’t eliminate it in two weeks. So if we open up again after two weeks, numbers will go up again.

“So what would you do in that circuit breaker? It might be to get the numbers down just a bit.

“But I would suggest that the purpose of a two-week pause is to do much more testing, to find out where the virus is.

“So they need to have a testing programme, probably at scale, in areas where they think there are more cases, and give time for the contact tracing which is under pressure at the moment with large numbers.”

Professor Bauld believes that any second lockdown would not be as severe as in March.

She added: “I think they’ll try and keep the schools open at all costs, and if it’s half-term then the schools won’t be open anyway. I think they’ll try to keep the schools open at all costs.

“They’ll really focus on making sure the health service is open for business.

“They might restrict travel and say that you can only travel in your own area which would be incredibly unpopular if they do that at half-term which would cause big problems.

“And they would close hospitality.”

Professor Bauld does hold out hope though that science is making progress in the search for a vaccine.

She said: “We know that there are over 180 vaccine candidates being investigated, bear in mind late-stage trials.

“And we will have something like a vaccine and we will know where we’re at in something like six months, that’s what the scientists say. But we don’t know how well it will work, how long it will work for or how effective it will be for vulnerable groups. That is the first thing.

“The second thing is that once you have a vaccine, that’s fine, but how do you get it to people, how do you manufacture it at scale? How do you distribute it and how do you administer it? That’s going to take months.

“So even if we have one we can’t assume that everyone is going to get it by next March”

Professor Bauld also pointed to the treatments that have already become available to allay suffering while urging that we should learn to live with the virus among us.

SHE said: “We’re not going to eliminate it. We will get a vaccine sometime next year. But we also have the treatments angle.

“So we don’t have a vaccine for tuberculosis which has 10 million cases a year, we don’t have a vaccine for HIV which kills millions of people every year around the world.

“But we do have anti-viral treatments so that is another way to deal with infectious diseases.

“So we already have one treatment for Covid-19 for people on ventilation and we will get others. And we will also get anti-virals which will reduce the viral load when someone tests positive, they don’t become as unwell.

“And those things are really promising and I think we’ll get more things like that – and again in the next six to nine months.

She also had optimistic words as we approach winter regarding flu. She added: “If we get our flu vaccination programme extended as we are doing now and people take it up that provides protection.

“While because of the physical distancing and the limits on households mixing and the fact that people are washing their hands, you look at Australia and New Zealand and they’ve had far less flu in the winter months than they ever expected.

“And that is because of the measures that people are taking to protect themselves against Covid.

“I don’t think we should assume that we’re going to have a flu disaster.”