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The medical directors of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland said in a joint statement that the entire UK should move to Level 4.
The UK is on track to receive up to 50,000 new Covid-19 cases per day in mid-October, which could lead to 200 deaths the day after the following month.
Medical officers said: “The Joint Biosafety Center recommended that the Covid-19 alert level should go from Level 3 (a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation) to Level 4 (a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or increases exponentially).
“CMOs from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reviewed the evidence and recommend that all four UK nations move to Level 4.
“After a period of fewer Covid cases and deaths, the number of cases is increasing rapidly and probably exponentially in significant parts of the four nations.
“If we want to avoid significant excess deaths and exceptional pressure on the NHS and other health services during the fall and winter, everyone has to follow social distancing guidelines, wear the right face and wash their hands regularly. .
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“We know this will be worrying news for many people; please follow the rules, take care of each other and together we will get through this. “
Earlier, the British government’s chief medical adviser warned that the country should be prepared for significant restrictions over the next six months, during the winter period in which the virus is expected to flourish.
Dr Whitty said the death rates from Covid-19 were “significantly higher” than the seasonal flu, which has killed around 7,000 a year in the UK, or 20,000 in a bad year.
“This virus is more virulent than the flu, so the numbers that people are talking about are not irrational numbers for us to think about,” he said, and while treatment was improving, it couldn’t reduce mortality to “trivial” levels.
Dr Whitty, speaking at a press conference alongside Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, said: “If this continues down the road, the number of deaths directly from Covid could rise on an exponential curve, and it may go from small numbers to actually very large numbers.
“In a bad way, we have literally turned a corner, although only relatively recently. At this point, the seasons are against us, we are now entering the seasons, late autumn and winter, that benefit respiratory viruses and are very likely to benefit Covid as they do the flu.
Dr. Whitty said the virus resurgence should be seen as “a six-month problem that we have to collectively address. He said it would not be an indefinite problem and that “science will come to our rescue in due course,” an indication of the progress of a vaccine.
“But for the next six months we have to realize that we have to collectively take this very seriously,” he said. Dr. Whitty said there was “no evidence” that the new resurgence was a milder form of the virus.
‘Simple message’
Dr. Vallance said the epidemic was doubling “roughly every seven days” and said government models showed that would mean around 50,000 cases a day by mid-October. That, in turn, would cause 200 deaths a day in mid-November.
“There is a simple message: as the disease spreads, between age groups, we expect to see an increase in hospitalizations … which will lead to an increase in deaths,” he said.
Dr. Vallance said there has been an increase in positive cases in all age groups, which is not due to increased testing.
Citing a study by the Office for National Statistics, he said that an estimated 70,000 in the UK are now estimated to have a Covid-19 infection and around 6,000 a day contract the infection.
He said that being previously infected with Covid-19 “was not absolute protection” and that the vast majority of the population was not immune. The antibody response “fades over time,” he said, pointing to some cases of reinfection.
No questions were allowed after the statement from Dr. Whitty and Dr. Vallance, but a statement from Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected on Tuesday, outlining the additional restrictions and enforcement for the coming months. – Agencies
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