Speaking to talkRADIO the Mail on Sunday columnist stressed his deep scepticism that the UK will continue to have more coronavirus restrictions brought in after July 19. He explained how he was "not at all confident" that the country will be able to get to "October" without restrictions being reintroduced into daily life as he cast a gloomy outlook over the future of lockdown in the UK based on his observations from the previous 18-months over the pandemic.

       Mr Hitchens said: “People can quite easily, especially in the current mood...be panicked back into accepting restoration of all the things.

       "Or most of the things, that will be lifted on the 19th."

       Mr Hitchens went on to reveal how he is not confident the UK will see the end of restrictions forever on July 19.

       He said: "I'm not at all confident that we will get through to October without it all being brought back again.

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       “But the difficulty is you can’t argue against it.

       "Because last autumn's events pretty much ended any serious opposition or scepticism to what was being said."

       His comments come as Sky News' data and economics editor Ed Conway warned the UK is heading towards "1,000 covid hospitalisations" a day by July 19.

       Mr Conway told viewers on Monday: "We are likely, just looking at the latest numbers, potentially up above 70,000 at that point on July 19.

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       “The big question though is what happens not just to cases but hospitalisations and deaths.

       “Last time around in the previous waves we saw cases go up sharply.

       "And hospitalisations up more or less at the same rate."

       But in a stark warning, he said: "The way things are going at the moment... it looks like we are heading up to maybe 1,000 hospitalisations a day by July 19."

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       On Sunday, July 11 the UK recorded a further 31,352 coronavirus cases.