U.K. government's impatience with lockdown risks a second wave of the coronavirus, scientist warns

Britain’s government is putting the country at risk of a second wave of Covid-19 by rushing out of lockdown, a leading scientist has warned. Speaking to CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Monday, David King, who served as the U.K. government’s chief scientific advisor between 2000 and 2007, said he “absolutely” believed policymakers were moving too quickly to ease lockdown measures. The U.K. is still at coronavirus alert level 4, meaning transmission is high or rising exponentially. Government policy states that social distancing must remain in place at this level, with “gradual relaxing of restrictions and social distancing measures” not supposed to happen until the country moves down into alert level 3.