Good Morning Britain's Dr Hilary Jones has issued a warning after the government announced a major relaxing of coronavirus restrictions.
Thursday's edition of the popular ITV news programme was hosted by Susanna Reid and Ben Shephard.
The medical expert joined the broadcasters on today's show to discuss the immediate phasing out of plan B regulations introduced in the wake of the Omicron variant.
READ MORE: When will face mask, covid passport and work from home rules be removed
However, Dr Hilary Jones is concerned the decision to lift restrictions is "too much too soon".
He said: "The threat is still there. If you look at the number of people still in hospitals, there's 750 on ventilators and 109,000 cases reported yesterday, 20,000 people in hospital. We're not out of the woods yet.
"This is a worry to many, many people. It's not just me who thinks it's too much too soon.
"Teachers, NHS providers, the Royal College of Nursing, Unison. They're all very concerned that taking away all restrictions suddenly despite the data is too much too soon.
"Hospitality will be happy, hospitals will be horrified. It's as simple as that."
Boris Johnson has axed the guidance to from work from home and the requirement to wear masks in classrooms from today.
From January 27, there will be an end to the covid pass and people will also no longer need to wear masks in shops and on public transport.
The government also confirmed the legal requirement to self isolate will be removed from March 24.
Dr Hilary said the decision to cut self isolation "made no sense" as it will increase the rate of transmission enormously.
He added: "If you're not self isolating despite having covid then you are taking that virus out into the community.
"Despite vaccination, there will be a lot of people who don't have immunity or who the vaccination hasn't been effective for.
"People talk about this becoming endemic and how we have to live with covid. But at the same time, we need to learn how to die with covid.
"People won't be able to get their operations in hospital, they won't be able to get treatment for strokes, heart disease and cancer.
"If you look at the facts, 6 million people are on the waiting list, we've got staff shortages, we had a recruitment crisis in the NHS even before covid so we can't avoid those indirect harms.
"If you're saying we don't have to self-isolate, you're basically saying infectious disease doesn't matter. Whether it's covid, flu or pneumonia, you're basically telling people to go out there amongst society and spread it around."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV and the ITV Hub.
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