Euro 2020 could be helping to fuel England's sharp rise in Covid cases, scientists have warned.
Experts from Imperial College London fear that groups gathering in pubs and homes to watch the national team's heroics could have contributed to a jump in infections.
A new study found that cases are now doubling every six days, with men 30 per cent more likely to contract the virus, which is most prevalent among 18 to 24 year olds.
After a miserable 16 months, millions have gathered around TV screens to watch Gareth Southgate's men progress the tournament final, while 60,000 lucky fans packed into Wembley Stadium for last night's 2-1 win over Denmark.
Professor Steven Riley, lead author of the React study, said: "I think the degree to which men and women are socialising is likely to be responsible. It could be that watching football is resulting in men having more social activity than usual.
"If I had to speculate about the impact of the Euros I would first think about the increased probability that people are mixing inside more."
Last month Public Health Scotland said nearly 2,000 Covid cases were linked to Scotland's game against England in the group stage of the tournament.
An estimated 20,000 people travelled to London from Scotland, with 397 confirmed cases among fans at Wembley Stadium.
A report by PHS also linked 55 cases to a fanzone in Glasgow, while more than 70 cases were thought to be connected to two games at Hampden Park in Glasgow.
Scotland's national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told the BBC : "Scotland being out [of the Euros] is a very, very unfortunate from a sporting perspective, but probably better from a Covid perspective."
Latest Department of Health data shows that 192,902 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past seven days.
This is a 42.8 per cent week-on-week rise, with 32,548 new cases confirmed yesterday alone - the highest figure since January 23.
A month earlier, on June 7, there were 5,584 cases announced by the Department of Health.
Yesterday Health Secretary Sajid Javid predicted that there could be 100,000 per day by the summer, but defended plans to plough ahead with lifting restrictions on July 19.
Mr Javid told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “By the time we get to [July] 19 we would expect case numbers by then to be at least double what they are now, so around 50,000 new cases a day.
“As we ease and go into the summer, we expect them to rise significantly and they could go as high as 100,000 case numbers.
“We want to be very straightforward about this in terms of what we can expect from case numbers.
“But what matters more than anything is hospitalisation and death numbers and that is where the link is being severely weakened.”
