UK 'could see 50,000 cases a day by mid-October'

Published : Monday, 21 September, 2020 at 9:57 PM Count : 499

People walk through the Chinatown area, amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, in London, Britain.(REUTERS)

The UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October without further action, the government's chief scientific adviser has warned.

Sir Patrick Vallance said that would be expected to lead to about "200-plus deaths per day" a month after that.

It comes as the PM prepares to chair a Cobra emergency committee meeting on Tuesday morning, then make a statement in the House of Commons.

On Monday, a further 4,368 daily cases and 11 deaths were reported in the UK.

The number of deaths recorded tends to be lower over the weekend and on Mondays due to reporting delays.

Speaking at Downing Street alongside chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick stressed the figures given were not a prediction, but added: "At the moment we think the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.

"If, and that's quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows, doubling every seven days... if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.

"Fifty-thousand 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.

"That requires speed, it requires action and it requires enough in order to be able to bring that down."

Prof Whitty added that if cases continued to double every seven days as Sir Patrick had set out, then the UK could "quickly move from really quite small numbers to really very large numbers because of that exponential process".

"So we have, in a bad sense, literally turned a corner, although only relatively recently," he said.