Top scientists warning that UK could see 200 or more coronavirus deaths per day

That was the stark message from the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser from today's televised briefing on the coronavirus situation.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, and Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, held a briefing in which they warned the public of the rising numbers of coronavirus cases and hospital admissions.

Looking at UK-wide figures, Sir Patrick said the number of people being infected appears to be doubling roughly every seven days.

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.

Chris Whitty (left) and Patrick Valance arrive to make the address

He added that if current infection rates continue, the UK could see around 50,000 cases a day by the middle of October.

Sir Patrick said there were cases of people being reinfected by the virus, and that currently, around eight per cent of people (about three million people) may have been infected and have developed antibodies to protect against coronavirus, meaning "the vast majority of us are not protected in any way and are susceptible to this disease."

Prof Chris Whitty

Although Prof Whitty used figures from England, he said there were similar trends across the UK.

It comes as ministers make final decisions on what national measures are needed to tackle rising cases, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock strongly hinting that separate households could be prevented from mixing.

In the first televised address alongside England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty that was not attended by politicians, Sir Patrick said there was “no doubt” the UK was seeing increasing cases of Covid-19 among all age groups.

He said it was “not a prediction”, but the current doubling of cases every seven days could lead to a dramatic rise in hospitalisations and deaths.

In mid-September, around 3,000 new cases were recorded every day in the UK, he said.

“If – and that’s quite a big if – but if that continues unabated and this grows, doubling every seven days, then what you see, of course, let’s say there were 5,000 today, it would be 10,000 next week, 20,000 the week after, 40,000 the week after, and you can see that by mid-October, if that continued, you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October, per day.”

He said the “50,000 cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November, say, to 200-plus deaths per day.

“The challenge therefore is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.”

Sir Patrick said it was not the case that the rise in coronavirus in the UK was down to more testing being carried out.

“Could that increase be due to increased testing? The answer is no. We see an increase in positivity of the tests done – so we see the proportion of people testing positive has increased, even if testing stays flat.”

Prof Whitty hinted that curbs to social lives were needed to prevent coronavirus spiralling out of control, saying there was a need to “break unnecessary links” between households and a need to “change course”.

He said there were four things to do – 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.

“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.”

Prof Whitty warned the country should be braced for a tough winter, adding that colder months were known to benefit respiratory viruses.

“So we should see this as a six-month problem that we have to deal with collectively, it’s not indefinite,” he said.

Mortality rates from Covid-19 were “significantly greater” than seasonal flu, which killed around 7,000 annually or 20,000 in a bad year, he added.

He suggested that science would eventually “ride to our rescue” but “in this period of the next six months, I think we have to realise that we have to take this collectively, very seriously”.

Areas in north-west England, West Yorkshire and the Midlands face further local restrictions from Tuesday, taking the number of people affected by increased local measures in the UK to around 13.5 million.

Meanwhile, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport and Blaenau Gwent will be placed under a local lockdown from 6pm on Tuesday following an increase in coronavirus cases, the Welsh Government announced.