TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps said claimed it is possible for the country to return to normality by Christmas, echoing the Prime Minister's comments from yesterday. 

Independent Sage scientists recently warned that if the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in England remains at its current level, there will be a further 30,000 virus deaths by next spring.

And this week a report by the Academy of Medical Sciences, commissioned by UK Government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, warned that in a worst-case scenario a second wave of Covid-19 infections could bring 120,000 deaths by June.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson claims there may be significant normality by Christmas

This morning, the Transport Secretary told BBC Breakfast the Prime Minister's announcement was about giving people a "sense of direction".

He added: "It's giving people a road map, really, so we can give people some hope whilst planning for the worst as well.

"We want to give people some sense of direction, because a lot of people are running businesses or rely on the Christmas period and need to know that if everything goes well that this is our intention.

"But you can't get away from the fact that the virus is still, in many ways, a bit of an unknown, and of course it depends how millions of people respond and how good and alert we are in terms of all the things we know, like washing your hands and for the time being keeping that distance of one metre plus."

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), has said a return to pre-lockdown normality is "a long way off".

"Unfortunately I think it is quite a long way away," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"If what you mean by normality is what we used to do until February and the middle of March this year - go to work normally, travel on the buses and trains, go on holiday without restrictions, meet friends, shake hands, hug each other and so on - that's a long way off, unfortunately."