An expert has warned of another pandemic, as today (March 23) marks four years since former PM Boris Johnson announced the first COVID lockdown.
COVID became one of the world's most fatal ever pandemics killing more than six million people across the globe, with the last pandemic of a similar magnitude happening 40 years earlier.
In an interview with Sky News, Dr Nathalie MacDermott, a clinical lecturer in infectious diseases at King's College London warned that the next pandemic could be close.
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She said: "I know that COVID was very hard for people and we want to believe we can just go back to normal and I understand that entirely."
She continued: "But the next pandemic is around the corner - it might be two years, it could be 20 years, it could be longer - but we can't afford to let our guards down.
In order to try and prevent another pandemic the academic urged caution, adding: "We need to stay vigilant, prepared and ready to make sacrifices again."
Dr MacDermott also pointed towards the climate crisis as a potential cause for the next pandemic, with the virus 'jumping' from animals to humans.
She said: "As temperatures increase around the world, even the UK will become an area where it's possible for those types of mosquitoes to live,".
The academic is referring to the increasing amount of mosquito and tick-borne virus in recent months with cases of dengue, chikungunya, and Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) being reported in Europe.
She explained how animals and insects have made their way closer to people and their homes after deforestation in parts of the Amazon and Africa.
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