Coronavirus: UK cases ‘could hit plateau in 2 to 3 weeks’, says top health official

Public Health England official does not rule out 1,000 daily deaths by the weekend – and admits ‘everybody is frustrated’ at lack of testing

One of Britain’s top health officials has said the number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus could “plateau” in the next two to three weeks, as he conceded to frustration that not enough people in the UK were being tested.

Professor Paul Cosford, emeritus medical director of Public Health England, could not rule out the possibility the UK was on course for 1,000 deaths a day by the weekend.

“My expectation … is that we will continue to see an increase in the numbers of people being infected and admitted to hospital over the next two to three weeks,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday. “But we should hit a plateau, if all the social distancing measures are working, in about two to three week’s time.”

Downing Street revealed on Wednesday that just 2,000 NHS frontline staff forced to stay at home during the pandemic have been tested.

“Everybody involved is frustrated that we haven’t got to the position yet [on testing] that we need to get to,” said Professor Cosford. “You’ve heard about the 2,000 yesterday – nowhere near where we need to get to but it’s a good start.”

Boris Johnson has pledged to ramp up testing for coronavirus after his government comes under fire for being slower than some European peers to roll out checks for frontline health workers.

The prime minister said mass testing would “unlock the puzzle” in his latest Twitter video, after No 10 admitted fewer than one in 50 NHS frontline staff forced to stay home due to coronavirus have been tested to see if they can return to work.

Professor Cosford admitted testing numbers in England appear low but insisted they will “increase rapidly” and said there was more “capacity” available to start testing more NHS staff.

Asked why more testing facilities were not being used, the Public Health England official said there was a plan to use “all of those laboratories, all of that capacity, to boost up at least 100,000 tests a day, hopefully more”.

Professor Cosford said he would expect this work to be in place “over the coming days and a small number of weeks”.

He added: “I know 2,000 doesn’t sound a lot compared with the many hundreds of thousands of NHS staff that we’ve got but that is now ramping up quickly … This is an incredibly complex operation to put in place in a very short period of time.”

The medical director also said social distancing would need to stay in place until spread of the disease becomes “minimal”. Professor Cosford said lockdown measures would be “reviewed and in due course perhaps lightened a little – but we’re nowhere near being able to say that”.

At Wednesday’s Downing Street coronavirus briefing, Dr Yvonne Doyle, Public Health England’s medical director, said that it was the intention for hundreds of thousands of staff to be tested “within the coming weeks”.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said a “reagent and swab shortage” is currently limiting the amount of testing done, but there was enough test machine capacity to do 100,000 tests a day.