Chris Whitty warns we could be in lockdown in five weeks as cases spiral

Whitty told an online seminar hosted by the Science Museum on the same evening that the situation could become very dangerous for individual hospitals, warning that "I don't think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast."

He went on to state that if we continue "saying the numbers in hospital are low now, that does not mean the numbers will be low in hospital in five, six, seven, eight weeks' time", adding, "They could actually be really quite serious."

He went on to remind that, "We've still got 2,000 people in hospital and that number is increasing. If we double from 2,000 to 4,000 from 4,000 to 8,000, 8,000 and so on it doesn't take many doubling times until you're in very, very large numbers indeed."

Whitty summarised by saying, "we are not by any means out of the woods yet", while caveating that "we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs, and a variety of other things".