Chris Whitty warns UK headed for 200 deaths a day unless we act
The government's chief medical advisers have told us that coronavirus cases are rising quickly and steps have to be taken.
Last updated 21st Sep 2020
We've been warned that the UK faces 200 deaths a day in November if the current rate of coronavirus infections isn't reduced.
The government's chief scientific and medical advisers have given a briefing setting out the rise in cases and the risk of more deaths if we don't lower the rate of infection
We might also be facing more restrictions on our lifestyles, the advice from England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty was clear: "we have to break unnecessary links between households".
"50,000 coronavirus cases a day"
The UK could be facing 50,000 new Covid-19 cases a day by mid-October, if the current rate of infection is not halted, the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has warned, with deaths rising to 200 a day a month later if nothing is done.
Sir Patrick said the “vast majority of the population remain susceptible” to catching coronavirus and the current situation required swift action to bring the case numbers down.
In a televised press conference together with England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick said there was “no doubt” the UK was in a situation where the numbers were increasing among all age groups.
He said: “At the moment, we think that the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.”
Are we heading for a second lockdown?
It's very difficult to know what politicians will do off the back of this stark warning, but there is little doubt that some disruption is likely to come our way.
We've already seen the rule of six introduced and chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty hinted at curbs to social lives being needed to prevent coronavirus spiraling out of control.
Politicians have been clear that while they don't want a second lockdown, they will do whatever it takes to keep the number of cases down.
Today Prof Whitty said there was a need to “break unnecessary links” between households and there was a need to “change course”.
“You cannot in an epidemic just take your own risk, unfortunately you’re taking a risk on behalf of everybody else. It’s important that we see this as something we have to do collectively,” he said.
He said the four things to do are reducing individual risk by washing hands and using masks, quarantine measures, and investing in vaccines and drugs.
“The third one, and in many ways the most difficult, is that we have to break unnecessary links between households because that is the way in which this virus is transmitted,” he said.
“And this means reducing social contacts whether they are at work, and this is where we have enormous gratitude to all the businesses for example who have worked so hard to make their environments Covid-secure to reduce the risk, and also in social environments.
Whitty continued:
“We all know we cannot do this without some significant downsides.
“This is a balance of risk between if we don’t do enough the virus will take off – and at the moment that is the path we’re clearly on – and if we do not change course we are going to find ourselves in a very difficult problem.”