Prof. Steven Riley said vaccines did not mean social controls should end, adding “no vaccine is perfect” We are certainly going to be in the situation where we can allow more infection in the community, but there is a limit,” he said LONDON: A scientist advising the UK government has warned that early lifting of lockdown measures could see a resurgence of coronavirus disease cases leading to a return to restrictions, despite the country’s rapid vaccination program. Prof. Steven Riley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), said vaccines did not mean social controls should end, adding “no vaccine is perfect.” Riley told BBC Radio 4: “We are certainly going to be in the situation where we can allow more infection in the community, but there is a limit. “In the short term, if we were to allow a very large wave of infection, that wave will find all the people who couldn’t have the vaccine for very good reason (and) those people who had the vaccine but unfortunately it didn’t give them the protection they need,” he added. “I think scientists are genuinely worried. We don’t want to show that it is an excellent (but) not perfect vaccine by having another large wave in the UK,” Riley said. “If for some reason we were to choose to just pretend it (coronavirus) wasn’t here any more, then there is the potential to go back to a wave that is a similar size to the one that we are in now.”