The UK’s deputy chief medical officer warned Wednesday that despite the arrival of COVID vaccines, face masks will still have to be worn “for years” to come.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that he expects to see the face coverings become as commonplace as they are in China and other places in the far east.

Van-Tam urged that there will be no opportunity to “have a massive party and throw out our masks and hand sanitiser” now that a vaccine is here.

Van-Tam also warned that “the vaccine isn’t going to help you if you don’t take it,” adding that “Watching others take it and hoping that this will then protect you isn’t going to work.”

He added that the virus  is likely “going to be with humankind forever.”

Meanwhile, new guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that everyone should be wearing a face mask everywhere indoors at all times, as well as outdoors whenever they cannot keep more than a metre away from others.

The health body issued a new information sheet with the guidelines, but admits that there is “limited evidence” that masks have any effect on stopping the spread of coronavirus.

An in depth study by Danish scientists at Copenhagen University recently found no evidence that masks protect anyone from the virus.