‘UK not out of the woods yet, hospital numbers are scary’

The UK is ldquonot out of the woods yetrdquo with the coronavirus pandemic and the number of people hospitalised with the deadly virus could reach ldquoquite scary numbersrdquo if the trend is sustained Englandrsquos Chief Medical Officer has warnedProfessor Chris Whitty also said that people should approach the end of most restrictions from Monday with cautionWhitty said that the number of people in hospital with Covid19 is doubling around every three weeks and could hit ldquoquite scary numbersrdquo if that trend is sustained He urged the public to take things lsquoincredibly slowlyrsquo as the socalled July 19 lsquoFreedom Dayrsquo from legal lockdown restrictions approachesldquoI donrsquot think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fastrdquo he told a webinar hosted by the Science Museum on ThursdayldquoWe 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 itrsquos got even further to run globallyrdquo he saidHe expected most people will carry on taking precautions such as face masks in enclosed spaces even if they are no longer a legal requirement in England from next weekProfessor Whitty predicted that in the medium term coronavirus could mutate into a ldquovaccine escape variantrdquo that could take the UK ldquosome of the way backwardsrdquo into the worst days of the pandemic ldquoThe 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 tablerdquo he said ldquoBut you know science has done a phenomenal job so far and it will continue to do sordquo he addedlsquoI lost 10 family members to CovidrsquoUS Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy has revealed that he lost 10 family members in the US and India to the pandemic making a strong case for Americans to get vaccinated Launching a campaign against misinformation he urged people to raise the bar to share health information by checking sources before sharing it to ensure it is backed by credible scientific sources ldquoOn a personal note itrsquos painful for me to know that nearly every death we see now from Covid19 could have been preventedrdquo he said ldquoI say that as someone who has lost 10 family members to Covid19 and who wishes each and every day that they had had the opportunity to get vaccinatedrdquo201444No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours188332972Total no of cases worldwide4063453Total no of deaths worldwideSource WHOJohns HopkinsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever