Boris Johnson has said that July 19 is “looking good” when asked if he would rule out further lockdowns this winter.

Hopes of an irreversible end to lockdown in England in July were dampened this weekend when  Dr Susan Hopkins appeared on The Andrew Marr Show.

Public Health England’s strategic response director said: "We may have to do further lockdowns this winter, I can't predict the future, it depends on whether hospitals start to become overwhelmed.

"We are definitely seeing some signals in some areas of cases slowing down, Bolton for example has definitely reversed, Blackburn and Darwen has stabilised.

"But there are other parts of the country, particularly in some parts of the north-east, some parts of London that are still rising quite fast.

"So, I think this is not all doing the same thing all over the country, and we're seeing rises and falls as people go out and get tested and I think we are seeing the impact of vaccination and that is good news."

She added: "The extra time to vaccinate more people, get two doses of vaccination in as many people as possible will hopefully mean that what we're seeing with this wave won't look the same as the previous waves that we've seen in this country."

Her comments followed a warning from Professor Adam Finn, who advises the Government on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

He said a "third wave" of coronavirus infections "is definitely under way".

The Prime Minister has now provided an update when speaking to reporters during a visit to a laboratory in Hertfordshire.

He said: “You can never exclude that there will be some new disease, some new horror that we simply haven’t budgeted for, or accounted for.

“But looking at where we are, looking at the efficacy of the vaccines against all variants that we can currently see – so Alpha, Delta, the lot of them, Kappa – I think it’s looking good for July 19 to be that terminus point.

“I think what the scientists are saying is that things like flu will come back this winter, we may have a rough winter for all sorts of reasons, and obviously there are big pressures on the NHS.

“All the more reason to reduce the number of Covid cases now, give the NHS the breathing space it needs to get on with dealing with all those other pressures, and we are certainly going to be putting in the investment to make sure that they can.”