Covid deaths unlikely to hit 4,000 a day, Whitty concedes
Vallance and Whitty admit that there are errors in long-term modelling and deny trying to scare people
DEATH rates are unlikely to hit the 4,000-a-day level shown at a press conference on Saturday, Prof Chris Whitty has admitted, and said a peak similar to the first wave was “entirely realistic”.
Giving evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee ahead of a vote on a national lockdown, he said 1,000 deaths was a more conservative estimate, backed up by short-term projections. “I think reaching the peak we reached in April strikes me as an entirely realistic situation,” he said. “So if people want to take a conservative view that would be something which the shortterm projections would take us to.”
But he warned 1,000 deaths a day would still put pressure on the NHS, although Greg Clark, the committee chairman, pointed out the NHS coped with similar figures in the first wave.
Prof Whitty appeared to distance himself from the long-term modelling map shown by Sir Patrick Vallance, claiming he did not show ministers projections longer than six weeks. Sir Patrick admitted he had shown the longer term graph to Boris Johnson. The pair also said the impact of new tier restrictions would not have been fully represented in either the short-term or longer term models.
The longer term projection was also based on an “R” rate of 1.3 to 1.5, even though at present it was 1.1 to 1.3. Yesterday King’s College said it believed the “R” rate for the UK, England and Scotland had now fallen to 1. The King’s ZOE app, which has been tracking symptoms and test results since the first wave, showed a slight fall in new cases.
Prof Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, said the “R” value in Liverpool was “well below one at this moment in time”.
Prof Whitty also said although rates may be falling overall they were still rising among the over-60s. Documents seen by The Daily Telegraph show that hospital intensive care is no busier than normal for the majority of trusts.
Yesterday, NHS Wales said the number of Covid patients in Wales needing critical care was less than half the level at the peak, despite rising cases.
A MINISTER has admitted that the Government’s coronavirus data are “in need of improvement” after MPS accused Downing Street of relying on “hysterical” forecasts.
Penny Mordaunt, the paymaster general, promised to “feed back to the Government the need for better and clear data” following an outcry over projections of 4,000 coronavirus deaths a day by Christmas.
It came after Bob Seely, the MP for the Isle of Wight, hit out at “hysterical” projections, warning: “People are losing faith in the Government’s reliance on data and science.”
He called for a peer review of the evidence after charts used by Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser, to convince Boris Johnson to lock the country down again were criticised for being out of date and too selective.
Ms Mordaunt also apologised to Tory MPS who were accused of wanting to “let the virus rip” by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary.
During a Westminster Hall debate, she said: “I certainly will not say that any member who has spoken today wishes to let this virus rip. I do regret those accusations that have been made in the past.
“None of us wants to let this virus rip. All of us understand how devastating it has been. Given there is no silver bullet on the horizon, honourable members are quite rightly asking whether this is the right course of action.”
The debate came as the Government attempted to see off a Tory rebellion against the latest restrictions, which are due to come into force at midnight after they are debated in the House of Commons today.
About 20 Conservatives are expected to vote against the Government.
Yesterday Sir Patrick and Prof Whitty said they had not meant to scare the public with the graph, admitting that the 4,000 deaths a day figure was unlikely.
Giving evidence to the science and technology select committee, Prof Whitty said that 1,000 deaths was a more conservative estimate, which was backed up by short-term projections.
“I think all of us would say that rates would probably be lower than the top peak, but I think reaching the peak we reached in April strikes me as an entirely realistic situation,” he said.
“So if people want to take a conservative view, that would be something which the short-term projections would take us to. I think there has been some rather overblown rhetoric on this.”
Sir Patrick said that the long-term graph came with “all the caveats in terms of accuracy”, and added that it did not fully factor in improvements that came from tier restrictions.
Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, said that people without a scientific background would have been frightened by the graph presented by Sir Patrick and asked whether his intention had been to scare the public.
“That’s certainly not the aim,” said Sir Patrick.
“As you look for longer term projections, the numbers are bound to be wrong in one direction or another.”
With projections two weeks into the future, he said, “you can have some degree of confidence”, but beyond six weeks “you start to have uncertainty and, of course, that’s when you have to rely on data”.
Prof Whitty distanced himself from the long-term modelling graph shown by Sir Patrick claiming that he did not show ministers projections longer than six weeks ahead.
“Can I be clear that I have never used anything beyond six weeks in anything I’ve ever said to any minister,” he said.
However, Sir Patrick admitted that he had shown the long-term graph to the Prime Minister.
Prof Whitty said he was confident that the tier system had brought rates “substantially lower than they would have been”, but said he did not believe they had pushed the R rate below 1.
While infection rates had fallen among younger people, who were less likely to become seriously ill with coronavirus, the same could not be said for older people, he said.
“The rates are still steadily tracking up in all the data that I have seen in the older age groups, who are the ones who are likely to translate into hospitalisations, ICU cases and deaths.”
However, Prof Carl Heneghan, from the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University, published a graph on Twitter that showed rates were coming down in the over-60s in Liverpool.
Earlier in the Commons debate, Richard Drax, the Tory MP for South Dorset, had accused the Government of “coercion” saying: “This interference in our personal freedoms has not been seen since the war. I cannot recall a moment in our proud history where our nation has been cowed to the extent it is now.”
Insisting Mr Johnson had been “trying to avoid a second lockdown”, Ms Mordaunt said the Government had been forced to bring in more draconian measures “to avoid hospitals buckling under the weight of Covid patients”.
“The whole system capacity, including the additional Nightingale capacity, could be overwhelmed by Christmas,” she warned.