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Chris Whitty warns we could be in lockdown in five weeks as cases spiral
Published 09:31 16 Jul 2021 BST
Updated 09:45 16 Jul 2021 BST
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1.6m people in England have been told to isolate in the past week
The UK's Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, has warned that the nation could once again be lockdown as early as five week's time, as cases continue to shoot up all over parts of Britain. Whitty cautioned that if vaccines weren't 'topping out' the virus then Boris Johnson may 'look again' at reimposing restrictions in in 'five, six, seven eight weeks' time.' The number of new UK coronavirus cases climbed to 48,553 on Thursday – the highest since mid-January and the start of the third lockdown - with the increase showing no signs of slowing down as the government still readies to relax the final lot of Covid restrictions on July 19th. The government also intended to tweak the sensitivity of the NHS track and trace app following the final unlocking, however, this is now in doubt as it is clear that cases are surging. In addition to daily cases, 63 people were reported to have died from the virus as of yesterday and although 87.5 per cent of the adult population have now had their first dose, this does not make them entirely immune.Whitty told an online seminar hosted by the Science Museum on the same evening that the situation could become very dangerous for individual hospitals, warning that "I don't think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast."
He went on to state that if we continue "saying the numbers in hospital are low now, that does not mean the numbers will be low in hospital in five, six, seven, eight weeks' time", adding, "They could actually be really quite serious."
He went on to remind that, "We've still got 2,000 people in hospital and that number is increasing. If we double from 2,000 to 4,000 from 4,000 to 8,000, 8,000 and so on it doesn't take many doubling times until you're in very, very large numbers indeed."
Whitty summarised by saying, "we are not by any means out of the woods yet", while caveating that "we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs, and a variety of other things".
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