Coronavirus cases rising in ALL age groups as infections spike across UK, warn Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance
CORONAVIRUS cases are rising across ALL age groups in the UK and will ‘inevitably’ hit the elderly over winter if left unchecked.
Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance issued a stark warning that the virus is no longer only rising among young people.
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Prof Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick, Chief Scientific Adviser, addressed the nation live in a televised address to issue a Doomsday warning that the nation is in the grip of a second wave.
Prof Whitty said: “At the moment because the cases started to rise most in the lowest age bands in adults, these are the group least likely to end up in hospital.
“But as you move up the ages the mortality rates move up to quite serious levels.
“What we’ve seen in other countries, and are now clearly seeing here, is that they’re not staying just in the younger age groups, and moving up the age bands and the mortality rates will be similar to – slightly lower than they were previously – but they will be similar to what we saw previously.”
Sir Patrick added: “What we see from July, is there has been an increase in cases across all age groups.
“In the Office of National Studies study it is estimated around 6,000 people a day are getting the infection.”
Sir Patrick, the UK’s top scientist, also warned Britain could face 50,000 coronavirus cases a day by the middle of October without new lockdown measures.
He added: “At the moment we think the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.
“If, and that’s quite a big if, but if that continues unabated and this grows doubling every seven days… if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.
“50,000 cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200-plus deaths per day.
“The challenge therefore is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.”
He added the increase is not due to more testing, because of an increase in test positivity and results of the ONS study, which says around 70,000 people in the UK have Covid-19.
Prof Whitty added coronavirus will be at least a ‘six-month’ problem over winter before ‘medical science can ride to the rescue’.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to make a separate televised address on potential further lockdown measures later this week.
The PM is facing a heated Cabinet row over a second lockdown, with several ministers warning such a measure could leave the economy in ruins.
Former party leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “We are just starting to see growth. To lock the economy down would be a disaster.”
One minister told The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh it was decision time for Mr Johnson, who must decide whether to face down the boffins to save the economy.
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They said: “It’s getting close to being too late. It’s two minutes to midnight.”
Another senior Tory told Trevor’s column in today’s Sun: “Scientists are running the Government.
“They are afraid people will blame them for their mistakes and threatening behind closed doors to go public if they are overruled.”