Convinced by all the data, the PM has followed his ‘moral imperative’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson plunged the country into a fresh lockdown after being told that deaths could reach 4,000 a day.

Scientists estimated that by early next month all NHS beds, including emergency surge capacity and Nightingale hospitals, would be full.

The figures, based on NHS England modelling from the 28th October, warn that south-west England and the Midlands will be the first to run out of capacity, potentially within a fortnight.

The south west, which currently has one of the lowest infection rates, could reach levels currently being seen in the north west by Nov 27.

Protecting the NHS, as well as saving lives, is non-negotiable for the Government, and the Prime Minister decided he would have to act immediately to prevent the collapse of the health service.

He had already been told that deaths would exceed scientists’ worst case predictions of 85,000 in the second wave unless tougher restrictions were imposed.

Mr Johnson told the Downing Street press conference: “No responsible prime minister can ignore the message of those figures.We have got to be humble in the face of nature.”

The Prime Minister said that, if the NHS was overwhelmed, it would be “a medical and moral disaster beyond the raw loss of life”.

He said doctors and nurses “would be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die.

“The risk is that for the first time in our lives the NHS will not be there forus andfor their families,” he said

On Saturday, the number of people testing positive for coronavirus passed the one million mark, with another 21,915 cases and 326 deaths.

The Government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) told Mr Johnson that “on the current trajectory” the NHS would surpass its fixed and surge capacity, including Nightingale beds, even if all elective procedures were cancelled.

At an emergency meeting of the Cabinet on Saturday, ministers were also told by Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance that modelling by Public Health England and Cambridge University suggested deaths could reach more than 4,000 a day if nothing more was done.

Even with extra restrictions, scientists suggested deaths could reach 2,000 a day, still double the peak of 1,000 deaths a day reached at the height of the pandemic during the spring.

The Office for National Statistics also estimates that 568,000 people in England are currently infected, or 1 in 100 people, compared with 1 in 2,300 in July and 1 in 200 at the beginning of October.

The Cabinet was also told that the virus is on the increase in every part of the country, meaning that the “R” rate is above the crucial number of one everywhere.

One source said: “Although the prevalence of the virus is worse in parts of the north, it is growing as quickly or quicker in every other part of the country.

“The Cabinet was told that the doubling time in the south east is even worse than in the north west, and that the south west could be where the north west is now by Nov 27.”

A senior government source described the data presented to Mr Johnson as "atrocious". It suggests that the country is on course for a "bigger wave than the first", with intensive care units predicted to be "swamped" by December.

"Our focus has been balancing lives and livelihoods, but you get to a point when the NHS is about to break."

As early as September 21 the government's chief scientific adviser had warned the UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October unless further action was taken.

Sir Patrick Vallance said that would be expected to lead to about "200-plus deaths per day" around a month after that.

And, despite the scepticism which greeted Sir Patrick’s warnings, Friday saw another 274 people die with Covid and a further 24,405 cases of infection - even with the Tier 3 and Tier 2 restrictions which have been introduced across large swathes of the country.

Then on Thursday at a meeting of the Cabinet’s coronavirus subcommittee Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, gave ministers a sobering briefing at which he said daily deaths were already running at the worst case scenario levels of 85,000 in the second wave that was predicted by scientific advisers and would quickly be tracking above that level.

He told the ministers that he had changed his mind about the efficacy of regional measures and now believed tough national restrictions were the only way forward.

The latest models, seen by the BBC, predict that hospitalisations are likely to peak in mid-December, with deaths rising until at least late December before falling from early January.

In the Sage documents - dated 14 October and published on Friday - scientists estimated that, by mid-October, there were between 43,000 and 74,000 people being infected with coronavirus every day in England.

Their report said: "This is significantly above the profile of the reasonable worst-case scenario, where the number of daily infections in England remained between 12,000-13,000 throughout October."

A senior government source described the data presented to Mr Johnson as "atrocious". It suggests that the country is on course for a "bigger wave than the first", with intensive care units predicted to be "swamped" by December.

"Our focus has been balancing lives and livelihoods, but you get to a point when the NHS is about to break."

One of the starkest warnings comes from Professor Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), who said that coronavirus is now "running riot" across all age groups and not just the elderly and vulnerable.

Speaking in a personal capacity, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "For the naysayers that don't believe in a second wave, there is a second wave.

"And unlike the first wave, where we had a national lockdown which protected huge swathes of society, this outbreak is now running riot across all age groups."

He also said there were "many more cases particularly in younger females between the ages of 20 and 40", with three to four times as many women in the age group coming into hospital as men, because they are more at risk of being exposed through their employment in the hospitality, retail and education sector.

Professor Semple said "the tiered approach to restrictions hasn't worked particularly well" but that if a four-week lockdown was applied nationally and adhered to there would be “a dramatic fall in hospital admissions.”

He suggested there should be a review at four weeks and there could be a "bit of easing around the festive activities", but that a lockdown would give officials "time to get test, trace and isolate processes really up to scratch".

At the same time the Prime Minister will have also been told by some experts that the only way to have a "relatively safe" Christmas is to take "stringent" action now to bring the incidence of the virus "right down".

Professor John Edmunds, another member of Sage, said the current strategy of regional restrictions "guarantees high incidence across the country over the winter", and that, while restrictions do not have to be national, there is a danger that, even in the South West where cases are lower, hospitals will be under pressure within weeks.

"The idea of a lockdown is to save lives primarily. I think the only real way that we have a relatively safe Christmas is to get the incidence right down because otherwise I think Christmas is very difficult for people - nobody wants to have a disrupted Christmas holiday period where you can't see your family and so on," he told the BBC. "In order to do that we have to take action now and that action needs to be stringent, unfortunately."

Professor Edmunds also confirmed that the situation in the country is worse than the reasonable worst-case scenario of 85,000 coronavirus deaths this winter produced by Sage.

He said:"We've been significantly above that reasonable worst-case scenario for some time actually. It is really unthinkable now, unfortunately, that we don't count our deaths in tens of thousands from this wave.

"The issue is, is that going to be low tens of thousands if we take radical action now or is that going to be the high tens of thousands if we don't?"

Mr Johnson has insisted for months that a national lockdown would not be necessary, even describing it as a “nuclear deterrent” and warning it would be an “economic disaster”.

But he also told the Telegraph a month ago that there was a “moral imperative” to save lives.