There is every chance this Christmas will have to be a 'virtual' affair admits the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
During a press conference at Downing Street this afternoon, Sir Patrick Vallance was asked if he agreed with his counterpart in Scotland that this Yuletide will be very different.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, had earlier told BBC Radio Scotland it was too early to say what the situation would be in late December. But Christmas would 'absolutely' not be normal.
He said: "We’re not going to be in large family groupings with multiple families coming round. That is fiction for this year, but I’m hopeful if we can get the numbers down to a certain level we may be able to get some form of normality but people should get their digital Christmas ready.”
Sir Patrick Vallance: said: “The numbers speak for themselves. They are increasing and they are not going to decrease quickly,” he told a No 10 news conference.
“I think it is likely that some measures of restriction are going to need to be in place for a while to try and get those numbers down.
“The quicker you get the R below one, the quicker the numbers come down and things then give a bit of room. A lot depends now on what happens now over the next few weeks.
“At the moment, the numbers are heading in the wrong direction but there are some signs in some places of a potential flattening off of that.
“We need to wait and see and monitor the numbers very carefully.”
