Around 250,000 people will die in Britain as a result of the coronavirus outbreak unless more draconian measures are adopted to protect the population, scientists have warned.
The warning comes from Imperial College Covid-19 response team who have been advising the Government.
“The aim is not to slow the rate of growth of cases, but actually pull the epidemic into reverse,” Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College, London, told the press conference last night.
“Instead of talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths, there still will be a significant health impact that we’ll be talking about. Hopefully, tens of thousands … maybe, depending on how early we are, just a few thousands.”
They say that even with the “social distancing” plans set out by the government, the health system will be “overwhelmed many times over”.
In its latest report, it said the only “viable strategy” was a Chinese-style policy of “suppression” involving the social distancing of the entire population.
Such measures would need to be maintained “potentially for 18 months or until an effective vaccine became available.”
