UK can expect tens of thousands of deaths in second wave, Sage scientist warns
The UK can expect tens of thousands of deaths from the second wave of coronavirus in what is a “bleak” situation, a Government scientist has said.
Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) told MPs that immediate action was needed – and not just regionally – to stem the rising tide of Covid-19 cases.
He said: “I think if you look at where we are, there’s no way we come out of this wave now without counting our deaths in the tens of thousands.”
Asked for his view on current Government measures and what the trajectory looked like in terms of the number of cases, deaths and pressure on the NHS, he replied “quite gloomy”.
He added: “We’re already in Liverpool… elective operations are already being cancelled, so we’re already at the stage where that’s under strain.
“Elsewhere in the North West in particular but also in the North and Yorkshire, it’s not very far behind.
“So we are already at the point or getting close to the point where the health service in much of the North will be under strain in the next few weeks.
“And… even if we stopped things now, cases and hospitalisations would continue to go up."
Asked about when the peak of the second wave might be, he said there would be peaks in the North West probably in the next four to six weeks unless additional measures were brought in.
Large areas of the North West are currently under Tier 3, with Manchester and South Yorkshire due to join them by the end of the week.
Negotiations are understood to be underway with other areas currently seeing high levels of infection.
Top advisors to the government have warned Tier 3 measures on there own won't be enough to bring infections down.
Sir Kier Starmer said at PMQs on Wednesday Tier 3 was the "worst of both worlds" causing economic damage but not doing enough to stop the spread.
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Professor Edmunds added: “We’ll see peaks around Christmas, in the new year of very severe numbers of cases throughout the UK.
“It’s slower and lower in the sort of South West and South East but in the more kind of urban centres in the UK – and that’s the sort of thing we’re looking at – very large numbers of cases, hundreds of deaths a day occurring.”
He said the UK as a whole probably would not reach the peak seen in March and April but some parts such as Liverpool were already there.
“So I think we are looking at quite a bleak situation unless we take action, and we have to take action,” he added.
“I don’t think we should be taking action just specifically in the highest risk areas, but I think we need to take action everywhere else to stop them getting into that kind of rather perilous position.”
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Medium (Tier 1) - Rule of six applies indoors and outdoors. Pubs and restaurants close at 10pm.
High (Tier 2) - Households must not mix indoors in any setting including pubs and restaurants. Rule of six applies outdoors
Very high (Tier 3) - Households must not mix indoors, or in private gardens. Rule of six applies in outdoor spaces including parks. Pubs and bars which don't serve meals will be closed
Prof Edmunds said his own group was looking at how interventions might work over the winter, but these had not been requested by the Government and Sage had not been asked to assess this work.
Of Sage, he said: “We haven’t specifically been asked to look at different policies quite honestly, so nobody’s asking us to say ‘well what should we do here?’
“So these are things that we’ve really taken on ourselves and decided to look at ourselves.”
Earlier, Prof Edmunds said Government behaviour was difficult to predict.
He told MPs: “The most difficult thing is to predict people’s behaviour and I actually think the most difficult thing to predict is Government behaviour.
“Most of the time people’s behaviour is governed by the Government, so saying you can or cannot do that, this or that is the biggest determinant of individuals’ behaviour.
“At the moment it’s difficult to say what Government will do.”
Minutes from a September 21 meeting of Sage said a short period of lockdown, a so-called circuit breaker, should be considered for “immediate introduction”.
England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, rejected this call on Tuesday, saying that “in the areas where [the virus] is out of control hard measures are needed”.
He added: “Do I think right now it is appropriate to insist on those similar hard measures in, for example, the south west of England or Kent, where levels of disease are really very, very much lower than in the north of England? No, I don’t think that’s right.”