Liverpool health chiefs have described the current Covid-19 wave as a "tsunami" and said it is likely that people in the city will come across a virus carrier every time they go to the supermarket.
The city's infection rate has soared above 1,000 cases per 100,000 people - with neighbouring boroughs posting even bigger numbers right now.
The alarming rise in cases is already having a major impact on hospitals, with Merseyside covid admissions up 50% in the past week alone.
Liverpool's health bosses are now urging people to stay at home as much as possible and to keep any journeys - including to food shops - to an absolute minimum.
Liverpool's cabinet member for health, Cllr Paul Brant said: "This wave of Covid is fast turning into a tsunami, and the implications are quite simply frightening.
"There is a substantial chance that in any trip to a large supermarket there will be someone who is Covid positive, either in the store or who has just recently left.
"One third of infectious people don’t have symptoms so they will look and feel fine.
"To keep safe, please make sure you wear a mask, keep at least 2m away from other shoppers and that you keep visits to an absolute minimum. The new strain of the virus is almost twice as easy to to catch, so please keep safe and don’t leave home unless you must.”
Liverpool's Director of Public Health Matt Ashton said everyone should now behave as if they have the virus.
He said: "Every time we leave the house we have the potential to come into contact with an infected individual.
"It is essential therefore that we all stay home as much as possible, and we all behave as if each of us may have the virus, and that everybody we come into has the virus as well."
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Data extracted covering testing in Liverpool up to January 8 shows that the total number of confirmed cases for the last 7 days is 5,301, an increase of 2,258 cases on the previous week.
The latest weekly rate of Covid-19 in Liverpool is 1,064.4 per 100,000 population and the latest positivity testing rate - the total volume of positive cases returned - is 22.2%.
