As nations around the world go into lockdown in a bid to flatten the curve, the top health official in the UK has conceded that the country might have to extend movement restrictions for up to six months given that the death toll is predicted to increase.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, Jenny Harries, has said that while the current measures appear to be effective in restricting peoples movement, it will take time to yield results and the government is expecting the death toll to increase in the coming weeks.

It will take “two or three months to see whether we’ve really squashed it,” she said, and “three to six months, ideally — and there’s lots of uncertainty around that — to see at what point we can actually get back to normal.”

“We need to keep that lid on and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social distancing measures,”

That being said, she did also add that it does not mean that the country will be in complete lockdown for a period of six months, clarifying that the process could be extended should the need arise.

And she’s not the only one who’s predicting an extended lockdown. Neil Ferguson, an Imperial College London researcher who makes mathematical projections of the viral outbreak and advises the government echoed Harries sentiments, saying that the lockdown should go until June if the U.K. is to avoid the worst effects of the coronavirus.

With the Prime Minister in isolation after contracting the virus and the number of confirmed cases in the UK currently standing at 19,522 with 1228 fatalities, the mood in the UK has changed substantially in recent weeks.

As it stands, the number of positive cases worldwide is 720,187, with 33,903 deaths and 150,918 recoveries.