Britain today recorded 2,621 more coronavirus cases as the outbreak continues to march on amid mounting fears of a second wave.
Government statistics show some 2,998 infections are now being recorded each day, on average. For comparison, more than 3,300 cases were confirmed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Top experts insist the UK doesn’t yet need to panic over the rising numbers because they are only a fraction of the 100,000-plus that occurred each day during the darkest period of the crisis. Other scientists, however, say action is needed to prevent Britain being hit by another wave of the disease.
Health officials also announced another nine laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 deaths, taking the official number of victims who have succumbed to the illness within a month of testing positive to 41,637.
Government figures show deaths have yet to spike in line with soaring cases, which have doubled in the space of a fortnight — from a rolling seven-day average of 1,323 on August 31. It can take patients several weeks to succumb to the infection, meaning deaths may not start to trickle through for at least another week.
Five coronavirus deaths were confirmed yesterday as well as three last Monday. Twelve patients are dying each day, on average — down from the 1,000 fatalities recorded daily during the worst of the crisis in April.
Hospital admissions, another way of measuring the pandemic, have also started to increase in the past week, with 136 coronavirus patients admitted for care on September 9 in England alone — the most up-to-date figure. For comparison, it had dropped to as low as 25 at the end of August.
In another day of dramatic coronavirus developments:
The coronavirus ‘Rule of Six’ descended into farce as Britons ignored the new restrictions and Downing Street said police would not fine lawbreakers;Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer has gone into self-isolation after a member of his household displayed coronavirus symptom, just hours after he took a phone-in in the LBC radio studios; Wetherspoons revealed 66 workers have tested positive for coronavirus with outbreaks reported at 50 of its 861 pubs;Rishi Sunak ‘could delay the Budget until January’ amid fears a second wave of coronavirus this autumn could cause more havoc to the economy;Britain bets on another coronavirus vaccine with £1.3billion investment in Scottish factory which will manufacture 190million doses of Valneva’s jab;Professor Chris Whitty ‘told off’ chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance for pushing too hard for a lockdown in March, confidential emails reveal. 
UK’S COVID RESPONSE IS BEING LED BY A ‘DAD’S ARMY’ WITH LITTLE OR NO EXPERIENCE, CLAIM TWO OXFORD EXPERTS
Britain’s coronavirus response is being led by a ‘Dad’s Army’ of well-paid people with no experience, two leading scientists have said as they called on Number 10 to stop panicking and scrap the controversial ‘rule of six’.
Professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, from Oxford University, accused Boris Johnson of making a series of ‘catastrophic’ errors since returning to work in April, following his own battle with the killer virus.
They said the country’s pandemic response has suffered because it has been led by Government officials inexperienced in controlling public health.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, they pointed out, has had the job for only two years; chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty was appointed in 2019; Boris Johnson was elected last year; and the Joint Biosecurity Centre – created to fight the Covid-19 pandemic – is run by a spy.
Professor Heneghan and Professor Jefferson warned the government’s new move to limit gatherings – which came into force today – was ‘disturbing’ and had ‘no scientific evidence to back it up’. They argued that it may instead end up having ‘major consequences’.
And in urging ministers to carry on with life because containing the spread of Covid-19 is ‘unrealistic’, they warned the ‘roll of the dice’ to crack down on large gatherings may tip the public over the edge and said it should be ‘binned’.
Gatherings of more than six people have been made illegal in a bid to stem a surge in coronavirus cases, which experts have warned is on the verge of spiralling out of control. Under-12s are exempt from the rules in Wales and Scotland.
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Deaths being announced each day by the Department of Health have tumbled since the peak of Britain’s Covid-19 crisis, with more than 1,000 patients killed on some days in April.
And although the numbers of coronavirus cases is rising again there is no evidence of this leading to more people ending up dying, as had been feared.
Experts suggest that cases are now being picked up more often in younger people, who almost never die of the disease, and that hospitals are now better at treating Covid-19 than they were at the start of the pandemic.
The most up-to-date government coronavirus death toll — released this afternoon — stood at 41,637. It takes into account victims who have died within 28 days of testing positive.
Ministers last month scrapped the original fatality count because of concerns it was inaccurate due to it not having a time cut-off, meaning no-one could ever technically recover in England.
More than 5,000 deaths were knocked off the original toll. The rolling average number of daily coronavirus deaths dropped drastically — from around 60 to fewer than ten.
The deaths data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours. It is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.
And the figure does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland and Northern Ireland are out of sync.
The toll announced by NHS England every day, which only takes into account fatalities in hospitals, doesn’t match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.
For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities ‘as soon as they are available’.
It comes as ministers today urged people to snitch on their neighbours if they are flouting the new ‘Rule of Six’ coronavirus policy as the country teeters on the brink of another disastrous lockdown.
Policing minister Kit Malthouse said rule-breakers should be flagged to the authorities, as the draconian measures opened up deep splits between ministers and experts.
The drastic intervention came as Home Secretary Priti Patel warned that people face criminal records as well as thousands of pounds in fines if they refuse to abide by the law.
Meanwhile, the government’s response to the spike in infections has been slammed by top scientists as panicky and not based on evidence, with jibes that those in charge are a ‘Dad’s Army’ with no experience.
There are fears that the UK will experience a rise in the number of people dying of coronavirus as a direct result of cases surging. But data shows otherwise – the US has almost completely avoided a second wave in Covid-19 deaths despite seeing a huge increase in the number of people infected since June
Despite seeing a new surge in coronavirus infections, Sweden has recorded a continuing fall in fatalities since the start of May
SWEDEN AND US DATA SUGGEST DEATHS MAY NOT FOLLOW CASES SURGE
Evidence from Sweden and America suggests that Britain may avoid a second wave of coronavirus deaths despite a rebound in infections.
The UK’s rise of of 21,300 cases in the last week – more than double the figure of 8,700 two weeks ago – has sparked fears that Britain is following in the footsteps of France and Spain which have both seen alarming spikes in virus cases.
But despite warnings from the WHO that Europe’s death toll is likely to mount in the autumn, experts hope that the second peak will be less deadly because patients are typically younger and doctors are better prepared for the disease.
In Sweden, the death rate has been falling steadily since April despite a peak of cases in the summer – with the country’s top epidemiologist saying that deaths can be kept low without drastic lockdown measures.
France recorded its highest-ever spike in cases with more than 10,000 on Saturday, but deaths are nowhere near the mid-April peak and the country’s PM says it must ‘succeed in living with this virus’ without going back into lockdown.
In the United States, cases surged to record levels in July and August after the first wave had receded – but death rates in summer hotspots such as Texas and Florida were well below those in New York City where the virus hit hardest in the spring.
Second waves of infection: Spain, France, Sweden and the US have all seen second peaks in cases since the early days of the pandemic
…but no second wave in deaths: The daily death tolls in all four countries have stayed well below the levels seen in the spring, despite rising numbers of infections
In Sweden, which raised eyebrows around the world by keeping shops and restaurants open throughout the pandemic, deaths have been falling since April.
Only 11 new deaths were announced last week, down from a peak of 752 fatalities in seven days in mid-April.
Cases reached their height in Sweden in the second half of June, when some days saw more than 1,000 infections – but the death toll continued to fall regardless.
Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who has become the face of the no-lockdown strategy, said in a recent interview that voluntary hygiene measures had been ‘just as effective’ as complete shutdowns.
‘The rapidly declining cases we see in Sweden right now is another indication that you can get the number of cases down quite a lot in a country without having a complete lockdown,’ he told Unherd.
Tegnell added that ‘deaths are not so closely connected to the amount of cases you have in a country’, saying the death rate was more closely linked to whether older people are being infected and how well the health system can cope.
‘Those things will influence mortality a lot more, I think, than the actual spread of the disease,’ he said.
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But other experts have delivered chilling warnings that the outbreak is on the verge of spiralling out of control, after the daily case rate topped 3,000 for the first time in months.
Boris Johnson sent shockwaves through nation last week when he announced the restrictions, the first widespread tightening of lockdown since March.
The rules are now in force in England after a sunny weekend when many people enjoyed a final meet up before the misery descended.
Gatherings of more than six people have been made illegal in a bid to stem a surge in coronavirus cases. It has sparked fury that many larger households can no longer meet up with anyone else.
However, the rules in England are tougher than in Wales and Scotland, where under-12s are being exempted from the crackdown.
Britons are now waiting with bated breath to see whether the action can bring infections back down, with around 3,000 new cases being recorded each day, on average.
For comparison, just 546 new coronavirus infections were recorded during the start of July, when cases dropped to a five-month low. They have continued to creep up ever since.
France and Spain in particular have seen huge rises, but Belgium – which imposed a similar crackdown – appears to have the situation more under control.
There are fears that failure will mean worse curbs in the run-up to Christmas, with a 10pm curfew for pubs being considered amid alarm that young people are ‘forgetting’ Covid regulations.
Britain could struggle to get out of another surge in infections without a solid testing and contact-tracing programme, and serious shortcomings in the system emerged today.
It was claimed that no walk-in, drive-in or postal coronavirus tests are available for people with symptoms of the disease in England’s 10 outbreak hotspots.
Swabs are not available in Bolton, which is fighting the largest outbreak of the virus in the country with an infection rate of 168 cases for every 100,000 people.
The Government website where testing slots are booked also shows there are no tests available in Salford, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Preston, Pendle, Rochdale, Tameside and Manchester, according to LBC radio.
When postcodes in each area are put into the testing system it allegedly comes up with the message: ‘This service is currently very busy. More tests should be available later.’
It comes as Nicola Sturgeon today accused the UK government of trying to limit the number of slots available for testing in Scottish mobile and regional test centres.
She said the Health Secretary had made the request after telling her a ‘demand issue’ had led to a reduction in test availability.
In a humiliating performance for the government the testing shortage has come just days after Downing Street committed to ‘Operation Moonshot’, an ambitious plan to one day carry out 10million tests a day to track the virus in real time.
But the current system seems inexplicably unable now to carry out even the approximately 150,000 swabs for which it is responsible.
The testing chief of NHS Test & Trace last week issued a public apology on Twitter and said lab capacity was to blame for slow turnaround times and people being unable to order swabs.
LBC’s Westminster correspondent Ben Kentish said that when they tried to get tests in any of the ten areas, they were not offered one.
‘The government testing website simply says the service is very busy and people should come back in a few hours,’ he said.
‘We tried to get a test in the top ten areas. In all ten they were unable to get any sort of tests in any of the ten areas.’
Coronavirus test appointments are uploaded on the Government’s testing portal throughout the day, meaning those looking to book a test are advised to check back regularly.
Once each test is booked the site shows there are none available in the area at present.
All the ten areas that currently do not have tests available are listed by Public Health England as the areas of England with the biggest coronavirus outbreaks.
Their latest report placed Bolton at the top of the list, followed by Bradford with 72 cases per 100,000, Oldham with 66 cases per 100,000 and Salford with 62 cases per 100,000.
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