England’s chief medical officer today warned the “seasons are against us” and said the UK faces a battle against coronavirus for the next six months as he called on Britons to act “collectively”.
Professor Chris Whitty gave a televised press conference on Monday alongside the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, to update the public about the current Covid-19 situation in the UK. It was the first not attended by politicians.
The medical expert said that the country should be braced for a tough winter, and that Britons would have to take the pandemic "collectively, very seriously” going forward.
A key figure of the UK response to the first wave of Covid-19, Professor Whitty said the country now needs a national effort to subdue the second wave.
"You cannot in an epidemic just take your own risk, unfortunately you're taking a risk on behalf of everybody else,” he said. “At this point the seasons are against us, we're now going into the seasons - late autumn and winter - which benefit respiratory viruses, and it is very likely they will benefit Covid, as they do, for example, flu.
"So we should see this as a six-month problem that we have to deal with collectively, it's not indefinite.”
He also hinted at new curbs to social lives being needed to prevent the situation spiralling out of control.
Professor Whitty suggested that science would eventually "ride to our rescue" , but that in the meantime there are concrete actions both citizens and the Government can take to help curb the spread of the virus.
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."
Sir Patrick Vallance told the public at the briefing that Britain could be facing 50,000 new Covid-19 cases a day within weeks if the current rate of infection is not halted.
He said the UK could see 200 deaths every day if fast action is not taken to curb the spread of the disease, that the “vast majority of the population remain susceptible” to catching coronavirus, and that "speed" and "action" were now needed to tackle the crisis.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock earlier signalled tough measures could be announced as soon as Tuesday and did not rule out pubs having to close early in more parts of the country .
Boris Johnson will chair a Cobra meeting Tuesday morning - another sign that new lockdown-style measures could be on the way.
He will also phone the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and brief Cabinet on his latest thinking on Monday, ahead of the meeting and a press conference.
The significance of a Cobra (standing for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) meeting is that it is usually called ahead of significant restrictions being decided.
The PM’s spokesperson said: “Tomorrow morning is an opportunity for Cobra to discuss what next steps may be required in the coronavirus response.”