HUNDREDS of daily Covid deaths are still likely even after Britain’s lockdown lift delay, a Sage expert warned this morning.
Professor Graham Medley also suggested the removal of restrictions could be reversed if hospital numbers rise.
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Covid cases are rising and an expert warned deaths could soar too despite the holding off of the lockdown liftCredit: LNP
The expert, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Although the numbers of deaths are low at the moment, everyone expects that they will rise.
“The question is really as to what level they will rise. And at the moment there is a lot of uncertainty in what’s going to happen over the next couple of months.”
He added: “There is that possibility though, I think that depending on what the Government wants to achieve, they may well have to make decisions that are against what they would much prefer not to do which is to make the changes that we’ve got irreversible.
“It is possible we could end up with a situation whereby the numbers of people going to hospital, really mean that the Government have to take some kind of action that they don’t want to, but I think that’s always been the case – Government has always taken action to that it didn’t want to, it never wanted to lockdown.
“And it’s always going to be the case in the sense that there is this pandemic ongoing but the next pandemic will happen at some point unknown, and then having used lockdowns once it’s quite possible that the Government would choose to use them again.”
It comes after Boris Johnson slammed the brakes on lockdown lifting last night as he admitted the Indian variant was ripping through Britain.
The PM announced that:
The PM said a four week delay until July 19 should buy time for the vaccine rollout to catch up – but could not rule out a longer delay for Freedom Day.
He attempted to sugarcoat the blow by lifting restrictions on wedding sizes and swelling the Wembley crowd to 45,000 for the Euros.
The decision was made after Sage papers, from the LSHTM, warned the UK could suffer 50,000 deaths in a horror summer Covid wave.
The PM was told 2,500 people may be hospitalised every day if unlocking continued as planned.
But critics slammed border dithering for allowing the mutant strain to take hold so quickly while others accused him of “panicking”.
Last night the jabs rollout was sped up to fight the bug, with 23 year olds invited to book today.
New data showed TWO Covid jabs slashed hospitalisation risk from the Indian variant by up to 96 per cent as ministers race to double-vaccinate 10 million more Brits by late July.
Top doc Sir Patrick Vallance warned without the vaccine rollout, the country would be going back into tougher lockdown now rather than simply slowing down.
The Chief Scientist insisted the jabs were spectacularly more effective than we ever hoped but the country was now in a race against the Indian variant and must not put the afterburners on.
The medics cited figures showing around 8,000 bug cases a day, the highest since the end of February – up 64 per cent each week.
Models suggest that if stage four isn’t delayed, hospital admissions “could be on a comparable scale to the past winter”, he added.
Mr Johnson warned last night: “As we’ve always known, and as the February roadmap predicted, this opening up has inevitably been accompanied by more infections and more hospitalisations, because we must be clear we cannot simply eliminate Covid.
“We must learn to live with it. With every day that goes by, we are better protected by vaccinations and better able to live with the disease.”
And he said health chiefs and politicians are “so concerned” by the spread of the mutation.
“Cases are growing by about 64 per cent per week on week, and the worst affected areas are doubling every week,” he said.
“The average number of people admitted increased 50 per cent week on week, and 61 per cent in the north-west. It may be the shape of things to come.”
Hospital admissions are not rising dramatically despite a big rise in cases
Boris Johnson confirms Freedom Day IS delayed and warns hospitalisations will reach first peak if we unlock now