‘Worst-case’ UK winter could see 120,000 coronavirus deaths in second wave, health experts say
- Covid-19 more likely to spread then as people will spend more time together in enclosed spaces
- In reversal, government says it will make masks mandatory in England shops
Britain faces a potentially more deadly second wave of Covid-19 in the coming winter that could kill up to 120,000 people over nine months in a worst-case scenario, health experts said on Tuesday.
With Covid-19 more likely to spread in winter as people spend more time together in enclosed spaces, a second wave of the pandemic “could be more serious than the one we’ve just been through,” said Stephen Holgate, a professor and co-lead author of a report by Britain’s Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS).
“This is not a prediction, but it is a possibility,” Holgate told an online briefing. “Deaths could be higher with a new wave of Covid-19 this winter, but the risk of this happening could be reduced if we take action immediately.”
Britain’s current death toll from confirmed cases of Covid-19 is around 45,000, the highest in Europe.
The AMS said there is a “high degree of uncertainty” about how Britain’s Covid-19 epidemic will evolve, but outlined a “reasonable worst-case scenario” where the reproduction number – or R value – rises to 1.7 from September 2020 onwards.