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LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on Monday (September 21) mulling over a second national lockdown, as an accelerating outbreak of coronavirus threatened to destroy any buds of economic recovery and send millions back into isolation.
The UK already has the highest official death toll from COVID-19 in Europe, and the fifth largest in the world, while it is borrowing record amounts in an attempt to pump emergency money through the damaged economy.
But new COVID-19 cases are increasing by at least 6,000 a day in Britain, according to week-long data, hospital admissions are doubling every eight days and the testing system is weakening.
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500,000 COVID-19 CASES PER DAY IF THE RISE CONTINUES WITHOUT RESULTS
The country’s top advisers also said Monday that Britain will face an exponentially rising death rate from COVID-19 in a few weeks, unless the government acts urgently to stop a second wave of the rapidly spreading outbreak.
Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer, and Patrick Vallance, its top science adviser, warned that if left unchecked, the epidemic would reach 50,000 new cases a day by mid-October.
“If this continues down the road … the number of deaths directly from COVID … will continue to rise, potentially on an exponential curve, that means doubling and doubling and doubling again and it can quickly go from really very small numbers to really very big, “Whitty said.
“If we don’t do enough the virus will take off and right now that is the path we are clearly on and if we don’t change course then we will find ourselves in a very difficult problem.”
The virus is spreading throughout all areas of the country and less than 8 percent of the population has antibodies to the virus, although in London around 17 percent of the population may have antibodies, Vallance said.
Speed and action are urgently needed, Vallance and Whitty said, adding that as winter approached, the COVID problem would haunt Britain for at least another six months.
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THE RESTRICTIONS WILL BE DIFFERENT
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the restrictions would be different than last time. The government wants to crack down on socialization, but schools and many workplaces will remain open.
“If we have to take action, it will be different from last time and we have learned a lot about how to fight the virus,” he told ITV.
“Schools are not where much of the transmission happens, it’s more about people socializing,” he said.
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When asked about Christmas and whether people could hug their relatives, he said he wanted it to be as normal as possible.
“If this gets out of hand now, we will have to take more severe action in the future,” Hancock said.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has also said that the UK is at a critical juncture.
“It is clear that we are a few weeks behind what we are seeing in other parts of Europe,” Shapps told Sky.
“It is very important that we do everything we can to control this,” Shapps said.
The official death toll in the UK is 41,777.
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