Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff have spoken out to warn the health service is facing a catastrophe, despite health secretary Sajid Javid’s insistence that the Covid resurgence has not put “unsustainable pressure” on hospitals.
With daily coronavirus infections at around 50,000 and the number of patients admitted to hospitals each day close to 1,000, the chair of the government’s Covid modelling committee, Prof Graham Medley, told The Independent the country could be “three or four weeks away” from a serious problem if the rise remained unchecked.
Leaked modelling also shows that A&E departments face dangerous levels of crowding in the coming months, with 60,000 more patients a week.
It comes as a government adviser said it was “quite questionable” for chancellor Rishi Sunak to suggest vaccine boosters will be enough to prevent future lockdowns. Prof Adam Finn, member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told Times Radio earlier: “I think we probably need to do more than that now."
