London, Mar 10 (IANS): England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that "big blocks of risk are being taken" as the country's coronavirus lockdown is being eased.

"If you open up too fast, a lot more people die," Whitty told a group of British lawmakers on Tuesday.

"If we unlock too quickly we would get a substantial surge whilst a lot of people are not protected," Xinhua news agency quoted the CMO as further saying.

The UK has so far confirmed a total of 4,241,858 coronavirus cases and 2,68,370. The country's caseload and death toll is currently the fifth highest in the world.

According to the modeling data considered by the British government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), at least a further 30,000 coronavirus deaths could occur in the coming months, even under the most optimistic set of assumptions.

"If people think this is all over, I would encourage them to look to continental Europ where a lot of countries are going back into rates going up and having to close things down again having not been in that situation before," Whitty told the lawmakers.

In a further warning, he said: "I think it's very easy to forget quite how quickly things can turn bad if you don't keep a very very close eye on it.

"If you start shunting things forward you will get these higher peaks."

On February 22, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his long-anticipated "roadmap" to exit the lockdown, which is the third of its kind since the onset of the pandemic last year.

The reopening of schools in England on Monday was the first part of the four-step plan, which Johnson said was designed to be "cautious but irreversible".

England is expected to see all legal social restrictions being removed from June 21.