Government science advisers have warned ministers that tighter Covid restrictions need to be implemented swiftly in England to stem the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant and avert a wave of hospitalisations similar in scale to last winter.
The warning came as London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, declared a “major incident” in the city.
Khan said he was “incredibly concerned” after 26,000 new cases were reported in London on Friday, which he said were causing staff absences in the city’s emergency services.
England could face “at least 3,000 hospital admissions per day” early next year if ministers stick to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “Plan B” strategy, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned, adding that “some scenarios have significantly worse outcomes” but “many uncertainties” remain.
Allies of Johnson say he is hoping not to have to introduce tougher rules on social mixing before Christmas.
If no further measures were implemented, daily deaths could number at least 600 by February, the advisers added.
Sage said restrictions on indoor social contact and indoor hospitality were likely to be needed before the new year to prevent a peak of daily hospital admissions similar to last January when nearly 4,000 Covid patients were hospitalised in a single day.
“If the aim is to reduce the levels of infection in the population and prevent hospitalisations reaching these levels, more stringent measures would need to be implemented very soon,” official minutes published on Saturday said.
Covid-19 infections surpassed 90,000 cases a day for the second successive day across the UK on Friday, following a week of record high caseloads. Some 90,418 people tested positive in the latest 24-hour period, up 67 per cent on the same day last week.
Control measures, including “reducing group sizes, increasing physical distancing, reducing duration of contacts and closing high risk premises” could be needed on top of face masks, ventilation and capacity limits, the committee said.
“Illustrative scenarios . . . suggest that measures equivalent to those in place after Step 2 or Step 1 of the roadmap in England, if enacted early enough, could substantially reduce the peak in hospital admissions and infections compared with Plan B alone.”
Under step two of England’s roadmap out of lockdown, indoor hospitality was banned and only two households could mix at any one time, while under step one, household mixing was not permitted and non-essential retail businesses were forced to close.
A return to step two could limit hospitalisations to 3,000 per day and 500 daily deaths, while step one could keep hospitalisations as low as 1,500 a day and deaths to just 200 per day, according to modelling provided to the committee.
The committee said: “The timing of such measures is crucial”, adding that delaying until the new year “would greatly reduce the effectiveness of such interventions and make it less likely that these would prevent considerable pressure on health and care settings”.
Sage noted that increasing vaccination coverage was “a critically important mitigation” to minimise severe disease but said “a significant package of non-pharmaceutical interventions would be required to slow the growth in infections”.
The government has pledged to offer all eligible adults in England a booster shot by year-end. On Friday, more than 800,000 third doses were administered across the UK for the second day in a row.
“Policymakers will need to make difficult decisions about the implementation of measures and allocation of resources which incorporate factors beyond scientific advice,” the committee added.
An emergency meeting of Cabinet ministers was held on Saturday to examine the latest Omicron data, which one government insider described on Friday as “pretty bleak”.
Declaring a major incident, Khan said he’d been meeting with partners from the NHS, the fire service, the police and local councils as concern increased over the surge of the Omicron variant in London.
“The big issue we have is the number of Londoners who have this virus and this is leading to big issues in relation to staff absences and the ability of our public services to run at the optimal levels.
A “major incident” gives emergency services in London the right to prioritise certain patients and means hospitals are unable to function at their normal levels.
Prof Neil Ferguson, a UK government science adviser, warned there had been a surge of cases in London and the true number of new cases across England could be as high as 300,000 a day.
Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme on Saturday, he warned the country could be “heading into something which has the risk of overwhelming the public health service”.