An expert has described the talks about reopening pubs in April as “premature” and warned it would take us “back to square one”.

The warning comes after pub giant Young’s said there is no reason pubs cannot open in April, as its boss expressed exasperation at the Government’s “lack of interest”.

Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter medical school, said: “It’s premature because we don’t know what the state of cases will be in the country at that point in time.

“It may be that the cases are low and that we have regained control because we are now managing to keep the case numbers down and our immunisation levels have been sufficiently high to have a majority of the vulnerable population immunised and therefore protected.”

Dr Pankhania, who has widespread experience of advising on national communicable disease control action plans at national and international level, added: “What the executives of pubs etc etc need to know is that failure to get it right equals back to square one.

“And back to square one equals much more pain economically, much more hardship.

“It is better to get it right than to prematurely bow to pressure and open up when you’re not ready to open up.”

Earlier, Young’s chief executive Patrick Dardis had called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “do the right thing” and show strong leadership when the industry “needs it most”.

In a letter to Johnson, he said the Government is basing its decision to keep pubs closed on “unfounded and unproven statistics”.

“Young’s is calling on the government to save our great British pubs and pull the country back from the brink of economic misery.”

“We are exasperated at the obvious lack of interest and respect we are getting from this government.”

But Dr Bharat Pankhania said all activities where human to human interactions occur involve risk, pointing out that alcohol also makes people drop their guard.

“Whichever way you want to cut it, you drink alcohol to relax and have a bonhomie with your friends.

“One of the consequences of relaxing is that you drop your guard.”

Mr Johnson was asked on Saturday if people could be drinking in pub gardens in April, and he told reporters: “If you don’t mind I’m going to ask you just wait a little bit longer, give us some more time to look at the data about what’s happening, look at the way the numbers are coming down, study also I think, very importantly, the efficacy of the vaccines – are they working in the way that we hope that they are?

“Making sure that they’re really helping along with the lockdown to drive down the incidents. That’s the key thing.

“I’m optimistic, I won’t hide it from you. I’m optimistic, but we have to be cautious.”