The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll will rise from 34 to 100 in three to four weeks’ time, an expert from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has warned.
Professor Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The treatments have improved, the way the virus is transmitting is going to be different, but nonetheless it is a dangerous virus and inevitably it will lead to some deaths.
“At a level of 10,000 [cases] we are seeing now, means that in three or four weeks we are going to see 100 deaths a day.
“In order to stop that process increasing again, then we need to make sure that that transmission comes down now because that doubling time will carry on.
“The things that we do now will not stop 100 people dying a day but they will stop that progressing much higher.”
Professor Medley also expressed concern that Britain is moving too slowly to tackle the rise in Covid cases due to a lag between reported cases and the number of deaths.
“My concern is the lag, is the fact that we end up in a position that we didn’t intend to, either government or the population … because the numbers of deaths at the moment look very low, even though, as scientists, we say look infections are increasing.
“And unfortunately that lag means that we don’t act soon enough.”
