UK ‘not out of the woods yet’ and pandemic ‘has got a long way to run’, Whitty warns
The UK is “not out of the woods yet” when it comes to coronavirus and people should approach the end of most restrictions on Monday with caution, England’s chief medical officer has warned.
Professor Chris Whitty said the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 is doubling around every three weeks and could hit “quite scary numbers” if that trend is sustained.
“I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast,” he told a webinar hosted by the Science Museum.
He added: “We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things.
“But this has got a long way to run in the UK, and it’s got even further to run globally.”
Professor Whitty said that the key thing after 19 July was “to take things incredibly slowly”, adding that he expects most people will still take precautions.
“If you look over what people have done, and in fact if you look at what people intend to do now, people have been incredibly good at saying, ‘I may be a relatively low-risk, but people around me are at high-risk, and I’m going to modify my behaviours’,” he said.
Looking ahead, Professor Whitty said that in the medium-term COVID-19 could mutate into a “vaccine escape variant” that could take the UK “some of the way backwards” to the worst days of the pandemic.
“The further out in time we go, the more tools we have at our disposal from science, the less likely that is but you can never take that possibility completely off the table,” he said.
“But you know, science has done a phenomenal job so far and it will continue to do so.”
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‘Highly probable’ worst of pandemic behind us
Professor Whitty’s comments come after Boris Johnson claimed it is “highly probable” the worst of the pandemic is over – on the day the UK recorded its highest number of daily cases for six months.
The prime minister urged people not to “throw caution to the winds” when most legal restrictions in England end on Monday, as he acknowledged there would be more hospital admissions and deaths in the “difficult days and weeks ahead”.
Latest figures show there had been a further 48,553 cases of COVID-19 as of 9am on Thursday.
A further 63 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
A total of 49 deaths were recorded on Wednesday, making this increase the highest day-on-day rise since 26 March.
Mr Johnson has said recently that daily cases could reach 50,000 by Monday, while Health Secretary Sajid Javid has spoken of case numbers topping 100,000 this summer.
But speaking on Thursday, he said the success of the UK’s vaccination programme, which has seen more than two-thirds of adults receive two doses, meant the government could go ahead with step four of its roadmap out of restrictions.
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‘Don’t have a great jubilee’ on 19 July – PM
“If we are careful and if we continue to respect this disease and its continuing menace then it is highly probable – almost all the scientists are agreed on this – the worst of the pandemic is behind us,” the PM said.
“There are difficult days and weeks ahead as we deal with the current wave of the Delta variant and there will be sadly more hospitalisation and more deaths but with every day that goes by we build higher the wall of vaccine-acquired immunity.”
Monday’s lifting of most coronavirus rules will see ministers seek to shift the emphasis from government diktat to people weighing up risks and taking their own decisions.
A range of guidance has been published ahead of 19 July, but ministers have been accused of sending “mixed messages” to people and businesses about what they should do beyond that date, in particular concerning face masks.
Despite the legal requirement to wear face masks on public transport and in shops being lifted, guidance for businesses issued on Wednesday states the government still “expects and recommends that people continue to wear a face covering in crowded, enclosed spaces”.
Critics have said the guidelines are a “recipe for chaos”, but the PM said businesses were “perfectly capable” of understanding new guidance on face coverings and guidelines.
“We are moving away from legal compulsion but we are saying that of course the pandemic is not over and sadly people have to remain cautious,” he said.
Rishi Sunak will try to convince the public he is the person to “fundamentally change the country” and fix Westminster’s “broken system” – despite the fact his party has been in government for 13 years.
In his speech to the Tory Party conference, the prime minister will present himself as a reformer who is prepared to take difficult decisions, unlike opponents, who take “the easy decision, not the right one”.
Mr Sunak will tell the conference hall that politics “doesn’t work the way it should” and that his Labour opponent, Sir Keir Starmer, is “betting on voters’ apathy.”
The speech will round off what has been a chaotic four days at the party’s annual conference in Manchester – an event that has been overshadowed by the announcement that the northern leg of HS2 will not go ahead as originally envisioned.
Instead, services will run between Birmingham and Manchester but they will not be high speed and they will use the existing West Coast Mainline track.
The development prompted Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to accuse the government of treating people in the north as “second-class citizens”.
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He warned the government: “To pull that plug here in Manchester would show complete contempt to the city region and to the north of England as a whole.”
The Tory mayor for the West Midlands, Andy Street, also warned it would be “an incredible political gaffe” allowing opponents to accuse Mr Sunak of having decided to “shaft the north”.
In his speech, Mr Sunak will rail against “30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one – 30 years of vested interests standing in the way of change”.
He will reflect on his first year in Number 10 and acknowledge a “feeling that Westminster is a broken system”.
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No high speed link north of Birmingham
“It isn’t anger, it is an exhaustion with politics,” he will say.
“In particular, politicians saying things, and then nothing ever changing.
“And you know what? People are right. Politics doesn’t work the way it should.”
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Sunak: ‘No one wants an election’
And he will say: “Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it.
“Our mission is to fundamentally change our country.”
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As well as the HS2 announcement, Mr Sunak has also been undermined by his predecessor Liz Truss, who drew big conference crowds as she demanded immediate tax cuts to “make Britain grow again”.
Mr Sunak has instead compared himself to the late Baroness Thatcher, who tackled inflation before cutting taxes during her premiership between 1979 and 1990.
While Mr Sunak has repeatedly sought to dodge questions over HS2, he did say on Tuesday that the costs of the project had gone “far beyond” what had been predicted, and the sums involved were “enormous”.
The HS2 scheme was given a budget of £55.7bn in 2015 but costs have ballooned, with an estimate of up to £98bn – in 2019 prices – in 2020.
HS2 will start at Euston rather than Old Oak Common – but between Birmingham and Manchester it will not be high speed, Sky News understands.
The rail line will stop in Manchester, but from Birmingham it will switch to use existing West Coast Mainline track.
It will therefore not be high speed after Birmingham – effectively confirming days of speculation that the northern leg of the controversial project has been shelved.
Alongside the doubt over Manchester, there have also been question marks over Euston station and whether the line would terminate there as originally planned.
There had been rumours that it could stop at Old Oak Common instead, but Sky News understands the rail line will stop at Euston in a move that could be designed to placate critics.
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The development, broken on the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge programme, follows repeated attempts by Rishi Sunak and other members of the Cabinet to bat away questions regarding the future of the northern leg of the project.
The government initially tried to downplay the original reports, saying they were “incorrect” and that no “final decisions” had been made regarding the northern leg, known as phase two.
But despite their attempts, questions over HS2 have dominated Mr Sunak’s first party conference as leader and prime minister.
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The northern leg of HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester is to be scrapped, Sky News understands.
Speaking at event near the conference venue, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham immediately hit out at the plans, saying: “If media reports are to be believed tonight, HS2 will leave central London, it will go to the Home Counties and the Chilterns underground, and it will get to Birmingham and then it will go onto traditional tracks.”
He said 40 businesses had written to prime minister tonight to urge him not to pull the plug.
“If you think about that for a moment, you know that will be a permanent statement for people in the north of England that they are second class citizens when it comes to transport infrastructure,” he added.
“It beggars belief in some ways that they are going to do this, they are going to pull the plug on that infrastructure that would pave the way for that new east-west line across the north, promised in not one, not two, but three Conservative manifestos.
“But to pull that plug here in Manchester would show complete contempt to the city region and to the north of England as a whole.”
Mr Burnham told the audience: “We say to them tonight: it isn’t too late from our point of view, you could invite us in.
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Osborne: ‘Tragedy to shelve HS2’
“Do not pull the plug on this city while you are in this city.
“If you do do those things, people here will never forget.”
The first indications that the leg to Manchester could be scrapped came after it was reported last month ministers were considering shelving the northern phase because of concerns about spiralling costs and severe delays.
According to The Independent, a cost estimate revealed that the government has already spent £2.3bn on stage two of the railway from Birmingham to Manchester, but that ditching the northern phase could save up to £34bn.
The reports immediately drew criticism from across the political divide, including from former Conservative prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
Speaking on the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Science and Technology Secretary Michell Donelan said the latest reports were “still speculation”.
“I know, having worked around the cabinet table with the prime minister, that he is somebody who is very thorough when it comes to the detail,” she said.
“So I’m going to give him the time and wait and see what he says tomorrow.”
Read more:
What’s next for transport in the north after HS2 cut?
The HS2 revelation could not be more disruptive for Rishi Sunak
Asked why the government was not confirming what is happening on HS2, Ms Donelan said ministers wanted to “get it right” on the project.
“If I was the prime minister, I’d be doing exactly what he’s doing,” she said.
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