The country, which has suffered more and more deaths from the disease than any European nation and recently became the fifth nation on earth to reach the bleak milestone of three million cases, is about to see its hospitals overwhelmed.
Whitty told the BBC on Monday that there were currently more than 30,000 patients in hospital, compared to 18,000 during the first peak of the virus in the UK in April.
“We are now in a situation where about one in 50 people in the UK is infected and in London about 1 in 30,” Whitty said. “There’s a very good chance that if you meet someone unnecessarily, they will have Covid.”
His warning comes with the country barely a week into its third national exclusion. But fears are mounting that Britons are increasingly relinquishing compliance with the rules, as the numbers in the case continue to rise despite extreme measures.
Whitty emphasizes that reducing contact with others can make the situation worse.
“Any unnecessary contact any of us has is a possible link in a shipping chain that will eventually lead to a vulnerable person,” he told the BBC. “So the absolute key is that we should all think we really need to have this contact?”
Whitty’s intervention comes because the number of daily deaths in the UK remains very high, a point that is grimly illustrated by the fact that in one country in the south of England corpses are stored in a temporary facility as mortuaries are there.
The temporary plant in Surrey, south of London, could hold an extra 800 bodies, above the 600 that could be kept in mortuaries.
A spokesperson for the Surrey Local Resilience Forum told the PA news agency in the UK: “To put this in perspective, during the first wave they let 700 bodies go through the (temporary) facility … The first wave lasted about 12 weeks from mid-March to mid-May … Since December 21, after only two and a half weeks, they have been through 300 bodies. ”
The UK has put forward the lead on approving Covid-19 vaccinations, and the government is expected to outline on Monday the target of vaccinating 13 million people by 15 February.
A large portion of the program will be handled by vaccination centers across the country – the first of which opens Monday – and an army of volunteers trained to administer the vaccine.
And even the good news that two million people have been vaccinated has been soured by reports of vaccine shortages in some hospitals. It is unclear why the shortages occur; the government has been criticized for how it intends to prioritize the doses it does have.
If the worst fear of Whitty becomes a reality, the National Health Service will be under great pressure as it tries to deal with unprecedented hospital admissions, deal with dead bodies, vaccinate the most vulnerable citizens and also carry out the normal procedures.
The government will hope that Whitty’s serious warnings force citizens to comply with measures to stop the spread of the virus.