Expert warns UK might not change behaviour until coronavirus death toll is ‘very big’

The UK’s coronavirus epidemic could spiral out of control if people wait for the death toll to rise before changing their behaviour, a leading scientist has warned.

Professor Graham Medley, a disease expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said people risk making the outbreak worse by refusing to take it seriously early on.

Officially only 590 people in the UK have been diagnosed with the coronavirus but the Government says the true number is between 5,000 and 10,0000.

Ten people have died so far – all in their sixties or older, which are the most at-risk age groups – but Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned many more will die.

Professor Medley told BBC Newsnight that it will be too late to start reacting when the death toll begins to soar, because the virus will already have been spreading for a month. 

He said people should now start acting as if they already have the virus and are trying to avoid passing it on, instead of acting as though they’re trying to avoid catching it.

The UK now has 798 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, 11 people have died and more than 31,000 people have been tested (Figures accurate on Friday March 13)

Professor Medley told Newsnight: ‘One of the problems that we’re already facing is the fact that our main source of data is deaths, unfortunately. 

‘But those deaths happen about a month after the first infection. 

‘One of our concerns, though, is that this delay between infection and death, of about a month, is going to cause us problems if people don’t change their behaviour until they start to see deaths become very big. 

‘And then at that point people decide “oh we’d better start washing our hands, we’d better start avoiding contact” but there’s still a month’s worth of deaths to go through the system.’

The UK’s current epidemic began around February 28, when the number of cases rose from 15 to 20 and the World Health Organization admitted the virus was spreading inside Britain.

By Professor Medley’s logic, therefore, the UK can expect to see a surge in the number of deaths by the end of March.

If people don’t act until then, the virus will already have spread through a significant section of the population, he said.

Infections are already 39 times higher than they were two weeks ago – they’ve risen from 15 on February 27 to 590 on March 12.

London Bridge station appeared unusually quiet this morning after the Government yesterday revealed that up to 80 per cent of the population could catch the coronavirus but stopped short of taking any dramatic protective measures

A man is pictured wearing a protective face mask in a crowd of commuters on London Bridge this morning

The Government has not introduced any bans on large public gatherings or crowds but people may start to avoid them on their own, experts have said

Professor Medley said his ideal way to process the outbreak would be to quarantine all vulnerable people in the north of Scotland and push everyone else into Kent and ‘have a nice big epidemic’ there so people could get it over with and become immune to virus, then bring society back together.

Admitting that was not possible, he said slowing down the outbreak and spreading cases out over a long period of time would be the best way to handle it.

Asked what his simple message to the public would be, he told the BBC: ‘Most people have a fear of acquiring the virus. 

‘I think that a good way of doing it is to imagine that you do have the virus and change your behaviour so that you’re not transmitting it. 

‘Don’t think about changing your behaviour so you won’t get it. Think about changing your behaviour so you don’t give it to somebody else.’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday announced that the UK has moved into the second phase of its coronavirus action plan – the ‘Delay’ phase.

In a step change in official advice, Mr Johnson said that anyone in the UK who gets a new cough or fever should stay at home in isolation for at least a week. 

Over-70s have been urged to stop going on cruise ships, which can incubate virus outbreaks, and schools should stop taking their students abroad.

Officials stopped short of telling people not to go to large events or to stop travelling, and refused to close schools or ban big crowds.

These precautions could come into force later on in the outbreak when more people in the country are infected. 

The strategy is focused on moving towards a longer but less severe outbreak and pushing the peak – when the most people are infected – into late spring or summer when there is less pressure on the NHS. 

Hospitals are already under immense strain, particularly in the winter, and their staff and experts have warned they will be completely overloaded if coronavirus cases explode now.