Dubai – Masaader News
Expectations in UK that Coronavirus epidemic will last until next spring and could lead to 7.9 million people being hospitalised, a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials reveals.
The document, seen by the Guardian, is the first time health chiefs tackling the virus have admitted that they expect it to circulate for another 12 months and lead to huge extra strain on an already overstretched NHS.
It also suggests that health chiefs are braced for as many as 80% of Britons becoming infected with the coronavirus over that time.
The document says that: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.”
The admission that the virus will continue to cause problems for another year appears to undermine hopes that the arrival of warmer weather this summer would kill it.
Experts advising governments worldwide on the way epidemics grow and eventually decline say there will be a rapid rise in cases to a peak – and then a falling off. Whitty, who has seen the modelling done by UK and global scientists, says the case numbers will go up fast over the next 10 to 14 weeks.
That will mean a peak at around the end of May to mid-June, when the NHS will be under great pressure. The strategy of all countries is to delay that peak and stretch it out over a longer period of time, so that health services are better able to cope. There is also the possibility that new treatments will be available by then.