London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jul 30, 2025

Bring in measures soon or risk 7,000 daily Covid hospitalisations, Sage warns

Bring in measures soon or risk 7,000 daily Covid hospitalisations, Sage warns

Ministers told ‘basket of measures’ such as continued home working can keep cases under control

Between 2,000 and 7,000 people a day could be hospitalised with Covid in England next month unless the government urgently implements a “basket of measures”, government scientific advisers have warned as Boris Johnson made clear he hopes to avoid fresh restrictions.

The prime minister confirmed on Tuesday that Covid passports, the return of mandatory mask-wearing and advice to work from home would be kept in reserve as the government’s “plan B”, to be introduced if the NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed.

But newly published modelling from experts on the Sage advisory committee warn the government not to wait too long, with cases, hospitalisations and deaths all higher than a year ago despite the success of the vaccination programme.

Speaking alongside Johnson at a Downing Street press conference, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, also said experience of battling the virus showed “you have to go earlier than you think you want to, you have to go harder than you think you want to”. He said the UK was now at a “pivot point” where, if the situation worsens, it could do so rapidly.

Modellers on the Sage committee expect cases to rise in the coming months after almost all restrictions were lifted this summer, documents show. Daily hospitalisations could plausibly peak at 7,000 in England next month, far surpassing the winter peak, which reached 4,500 UK-wide, according to the updated modelling. Currently about 1,000 people with Covid are being admitted to UK hospital wards each day.


But if enacted early enough, before a rise in cases becomes sustained, even light-touch measures could be sufficient to keep infections flat and prevent a damaging fresh wave of hospitalisations, the Sage documents say.

“With the current levels of high prevalence combined with unknown behaviours, the burden on health and care settings could rise very quickly,” the scientists warn. They say “it could be a very difficult winter ahead” if acute Covid combines with other pressures such as long Covid, other infections like flu, or co-infection causes more serious illness.

Even though 81% of UK adults are double-jabbed, nearly 6 million are unvaccinated and vulnerable to the highly-transmissible Delta variant now most Covid restrictions have been lifted.

Sage modellers expect R – the number of people an infected person typically infects – to rise from about 1 in England to between 1.1 and 1.5 with schools reopening and people returning to work. If so, daily hospitalisations could peak at between 2,000 and 7,000 in October they said. More extreme scenarios that project many more cases are highly unlikely, the modellers add, without substantial waning of immunity or a new coronavirus variant emerging.

The recommendations were published as the health secretary, Sajid Javid, set out the government’s autumn and winter plan for tackling the virus.


He said ministers’ “plan A” included pressing ahead with booster jabs for the over-50s and clinically vulnerable and expanding vaccination to 12- to 15-year-olds, and continuing to advise the public to meet outdoors where possible and wear masks in enclosed spaces.

Javid also announced contingency measures for the autumn and winter including mandatory masks, compulsory vaccine passports for large and crowded venues, and urging the public to work from home.

When Javid was appointed in June, he described the removal of Covid restrictions as “irreversible” but setting out the plans to the House of Commons on Tuesday he declined to rule out another lockdown and conceded: “Any responsible government must prepare for all eventualities.”

Asked at Tuesday’s press conference when tougher restrictions may need to be implemented, the prime minister said: “Just bear in mind what we’re trying to prevent, which is the overwhelming of the NHS, and that will remain our objective.”

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, stressed the pressures the NHS was already under. “We are entering the winter with this reasonably high level; it wouldn’t take many doubling times to get into trouble; and therefore people still need to take this disease very seriously,” he said.

The government’s autumn and winter plan set out for the first time details of how it would implement vaccine passports – a proposal announced by Johnson in July but that provoked a furious backlash from Tory MPs.

Under the plan, the passports would be applied to all nightclubs; all indoor, crowded settings with 500 or more people such as music venues; all outdoor settings with 4,000 or more people such as festivals; and any venue with 10,000 or more people, such as big sports matches.

At the weekend Javid confirmed plans to introduce Covid passports from October had been ditched but on Tuesday the government acknowledged they might need to be implemented at short notice – and encourages businesses to introduce them voluntarily. The Sage group proposes “a basket of measures” they believe are light enough to keep the epidemic under control if brought in soon enough. They include more mask-wearing, encouraging continued home working, clear messaging about the remaining risk of catching Covid, more widespread testing and a return to requiring all contacts of positive cases to self-isolate.

The scientists are concerned that if ministers wait until cases take off, such light-touch measures will fail and more severe restrictions will be needed to bring the epidemic back under control.

A consensus document from the modellers, written on 8 September, says that rather than the sharp peak anticipated at the end of the summer, hospitalisations could peak next month and remain high into the winter.

The scientists warn that hospital occupancy in England only has to rise two and half times to reach last winter’s peak. In Scotland, it took two weeks for hospital occupancy to double after schools went back.

The scientists add there is a “clear consensus” that high levels of home working played a major role in keeping the epidemic under control in recent months, and warn: “It is highly likely that a significant decrease in home working in the next few months would result in a rapid increase in hospital admissions. If enacted early enough, a relatively light set of measures could be sufficient to curb sustained growth.”

Sage scientists have stressed through the pandemic that the scenarios they model are neither forecasts nor predictions and come with substantial uncertainties, largely because it is difficult to predict how people will behave.

Modelling in September last year was instrumental in Sage calling for an urgent “circuit breaker” to prevent cases from soaring, though other projections have under- or over-estimated how fast the epidemic was growing. In the summer, the experts expected cases to reach 100,000 a day but infections fell sharply in July before picking up again.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Increases Use of Exit Bans Amid Rising U.S. Tensions
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Procter & Gamble to Raise U.S. Prices to Offset One‑Billion‑Dollar Tariff Cost
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
Botswana Seeks Controlling Stake in De Beers as Anglo American Prepares Exit
Trump Administration Proposes Repeal of Obama‑Era Endangerment Finding, Dismantling Regulatory Basis for CO₂ Emissions Limits
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
A family has been arrested in the UK for displaying the British flag
Mel Gibson refuses to work with Robert De Niro, saying, "Keep that woke clown away from me."
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
The British propaganda channel BBC News lies again.
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
×