THE rise in coronavirus cases in the UK is now expected to 'plateau' in the next 'week-to-ten days', one of the government's scientific advisors has said.

However people have still been warned to continue adhering to social distancing guidance in order for the rules to be lifted by the end of May.

Neil Ferguson, of the government's Scientific Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), made his predictions this morning on Radio 4's Today program.

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Asked by presenter Mishal Husain what his group's current forecast was, 'assuming people adhere to the rules', Professor Ferguson said: "We've looked at the data collected in last two weeks about how people have changed their movements, and that looks like there's been an 85 per cent drop in typical social movements outside the household which is excellent news, it's what we need.

"But the key issue we're trying to understand at the moment is how fast the epidemic will fall, and that isn't completely clear. "

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He went on: "We expect it to plateau really in the next week-to-ten days, it's hard to be more precise than that, but then we can see two options: a very slow plateau and decay of infections over time (and demand on the healthcare system) or perhaps a rather faster one, and what's critical to determine that is how people behave, how much people restrict their movements outside the household."

As of Friday, 38,168 people had tested positive for Covid-19 in the UK and 3,605 had died.

Prof Ferguson, a professor in mathematical biology at Imperial College London, said he was 'optimistic' about how people would behave, but added: "I would encourage people to see this through for the next few weeks."

In Oxfordshire 315 people have tested positive for the virus, as of Friday, and 33 have died.

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Looking ahead to the longer-term picture, Ms Husain put it to Prof Ferguson that while flattening the rise in UK cases was one thing, how the country could safely get out of the currenty social distancing rules without prompting another spike in cases was quite another.

He said that work was already underway to look at how social distancing rules could be replaced with rapid access to testing, and also to look at how the spread of cases could be mapped - possibly using people's mobile phones.

But he went on: "The critical thing first is to get case numbers down, then I'm hopeful in a few weeks' time we'll be able to move to a regime which will not be normal life... but will be somewhat more relaxed in terms of social distancing and the economy but rely more on testing."

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He concluded: "We want to move to a situation where, at least by the end of May, we're able to subsitute some less intensive measures, more based on technology and testing, for the complete lockdown we have now.

"I don't think anybody wants to lift measures at the current time and risk the epidemic getting any larger.

"If we start to see a rapid decline in cases then of course the government will consider whether they can relax measures."