Wokingham MP John Redwood has questioned the effectiveness of coronavirus lockdowns.

The Conservative MP claimed “there is no simple correlation between length and severity of lockdown with reduced disease” but said “widespread vaccinations are clearly having a big impact”.

Mr Redwood, who did not vote when MPs approved the third national lockdown in January, said European countries that have imposed longer and more severe lockdowns are still struggling to get the virus under control.

READ MORE: Liberal Democrats leader says taking control of Wokingham council is 'unrealistic'

It comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the national lockdown has done “the bulk of the work in reducing the disease” in the UK and it has “not been achieved by the vaccination programme”.

On January 4, when the third national lockdown was announced, the government said 291,867 people had tested positive for the virus and 4,679 had died over the previous seven days.

There were 24,984 hospital beds occupied by Covid patients.

Yesterday, the government said 15,871 people in England had tested positive for the virus and 234 had died over the previous seven days.

The latest figures show 2,481 Covid patients were in hospital on April 12.

More than 32.3 million have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine in the UK so far and over 8 million have had a second dose.

“The UK case rate has collapsed and the death rate fallen sharply,” Mr Redwood wrote in a recent blog post.

“Widespread vaccinations are clearly having a big impact. Other similar countries on the continent using lockdown without high vaccination rates have not seen anything like the same declines.

“That might start to change as we move into summer as it did last year before the vaccines arrived, as there was a seasonal pattern in 2020.”

He added: “The EU has now had the most deaths in the world at 627,000 followed by the USA at 575,000.

READ MORE: Hollywood blockbuster will be filmed near Reading later this year

“The current epicentres of the pandemic are Central Europe led by Hungary, Czechia and the Balkans, and Mexico, Peru and Brazil in Latin America.”

Mr Redwood also said the theory that reducing social contact with others reduces the risk of transmitting the virus “sounds very sensible” but questioned the effectiveness of lockdowns.

He added: “There is no simple correlation between length and severity of lockdown with reduced disease, with some of the EU countries that have had long and strong lockdowns having bad numbers for cases and deaths.

“It may be their populations are more prone to the disease and still catch it despite much reduced social contact.

“But there is, as yet, no widely accepted explanation of why for example, Asia has been so much less affected than Europe.

“It would be good to have more informed analysis from doctors and other experts in disease transmission on why the EU and some parts of Latin America have had much worse experiences than much of Asia.

“It does look as if the vaccines when offered to all those vulnerable make a huge difference to the death rate, and should allow a substantial relaxation in limits on personal freedoms and business activity.”

The government is lifting the lockdown restrictions in phases and on Monday, April 12, non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers and pubs and restaurants with outdoor seating were allowed to reopen.