UK running into COVID-19 headwind, warns chief medic ahead of new rules

London: One of the UK's senior-most government medical advisers on Sunday warned that the country was running into a headwind with the number of Coronavirus infections at a tipping point similar to the one back in March, when Britain went into a national lockdown.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, issued a stark warning that the dreaded R number , or the rate at which the infection is being transmitted within society, is now between 1.2 and 1.5, which means the epidemic grows larger as every one case generates more than one new case.

His warning comes a day before UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons on a new three-tier system of rules for localised lockdowns.

We are in the middle of a severe pandemic and the seasons are against us. Basically, we are running into a headwind, said Van-Tam, in a statement issued by the Department of Health and Social Care.

ONS data show that an estimated 224,000 people have the virus up from 116,000 last week, hospital admissions for COVID-19 are rising again, as are intensive care admissions...Sadly, just as night follows day, increases in deaths will now follow on in the next few weeks, he said, adding that the good news is that there is more certainty that children are usually not badly affected by this

virus.