to kevin courtney earlier he was making the argument that that should not happen. so a contrast between his views and those expressed by the children's commissioner for england. because that is the big distinction between the lockdown that we had gci’oss between the lockdown that we had across the uk in the spring and the one we expect the prime minister to announce in the next few minutes for the next month. because whilst nonessential shops will close with supermarkets remaining open, hospitality closing except for ta keaway hospitality closing except for takeaway is, schools, colleges and universities will stay open. and so the children, at least, next month, perhaps not as disjointed and disrupted as it will be for many others. crucially their education not disrupted. while we wait for the prime minister to come out into the briefing room... forviewers prime minister to come out into the briefing room... for viewers who are wondering how we have got to this position, whereby we are about to hear the prime minister announced a national lockdown in england, when just a few days ago he was insisting that a localised tiered system was a

way forward. how has that change happened? only has there been is very rapid change but then there has been this choreography or a lack of it this afternoon where here we are at 6:1i5pm talking about this imminent press briefing and some people may have wanted to tune in to see a reality show about little mix, and it hasn't happened, the reason is that the data has changed quickly. the way the government had hoped to communicate this has been overta ken hoped to communicate this has been ove rta ke n by hoped to communicate this has been overtaken by generous helping to establish what has been discussed privately. that is the job of journalist, to bring that to the readers of papers and websites and radio and tv rather sooner than the prime minister had anticipated. the data in the last couple of days, the prime minister, chancellor and others have been presented with two key pieces of data. one was from a series of scientific models, that the projection is that those models we re the projection is that those models were making, yes, they have big margins of error, but all of them we re margins of error, but all of them were pointing to a far sooner spike

and afar were pointing to a far sooner spike and a far higher spike in the number of deaths happening per day in the next month or so if nothing was to change as far as restrictions were concerned than even the reasonable worst—case scenario concerned than even the reasonable worst—case scenario that was the basis for the government's outlook up basis for the government's outlook up until now. in addition to that, some work, some modelling done by nhs england, looking at hospital capacity suggested that across england, even in those areas where the caseload is relatively low, there was the prospect of hospital capacity being exceeded. i think what we can expect in this news conference that is imminent, we hope, involving the prime minister, professor chris whitty and the chief medical officer, sir patrick vallance, the chief scientific adviser, is the "next slide, please" moment. we will get lots of data. they will show the regional picture around england is variable but they will also show how it is increasing substantially everywhere and, i

suspect, the point will be made that u nless suspect, the point will be made that unless action is taken pretty imminently, there would have been a huge threat in terms of the nhs capacity being overcome. the prime minster, we know, did not want to have to reach this moment. he was a keen advocate and a passionate advocate of the regional tiered approach and with that took quite a lot of political heat. remember the conversations, arguments, angry we are committed. i will stop you. here they are. good evening and apologies for disturbing your saturday evening with more news of covid. i can assure you i would not do this u nless assure you i would not do this unless it was absolutely necessary at first i'm going to hand over to chris and then patrick, who will present the latest data. thank you. first slide, please. this is a version of the slide that listeners and watches may have seen several times before. as you can see, the weekly case rate for covid, which is

in the darker colours, mean that the numbers are worse, is spreading steadily, was quite heavily concentrated in particular areas and is now over quite a large part of the country on the left. on the right, you can see the rate of change. anything in brown or yellow, the rate is increasing. the darker the rate is increasing. the darker the colour, the more rapid the rate of increase. again, across virtually the entire country now, there is a significant rate of increase. next slide, please. the thing which correlates most with future nhs capacity and nhs activity from covid is spread in people over at the age of 60. although people younger than that can certainly get covid and some may need hospitalisation and indeed intensive care, the majority of the disease that causes really severe disease is in that age group. as you can see that is a small area,

but again that has widened very considerably and is going up across the country. next slide, please. data from the ons, the office for national statistics, which is the official data which is done as a survey a cross official data which is done as a survey across the country, shows that the prevalence of this disease has been going up extremely rapidly over the last few weeks, having been very flat due to the work of everybody in the country over spring and summer. we now have around 50,000 new cases per day and that is rising. next slide, please. if we look around the country, thanks to the work that everyone is still doing, the r is substantially lower thanit doing, the r is substantially lower than it would be if people were not doing social distancing, not doing

all things in families, in firms around the country. it would be going up much more rapidly than it is at the moment. but there is an increase in virtually every part of the country, apart, possibly, from the country, apart, possibly, from the north—east, where they have been taking additional measures, substantial additional measures, and there is some evidence of some flattening but not yet of any evidence of the coronavirus falling. that is important because it is now at quite a high level and if things went wrong the margin of error is very, very small. very little headroom even in the one area where there is some flattening at the moment. so things are going up across the whole country. next slide, please. and it is probably important to think about this in terms of ages. these heat maps go from left to right over time, so the right is the most recent, and from bottom, which is children under the age of 16, bottom, which is children under the age of16, up bottom, which is children under the age of 16, up to the top, people

over 60. as you can see, what happens in every area is that it gets darker, meaning there are more cases, all the way through the period we are looking at. it's steadily moves up the ages. so it doesn't remain constrained just to one age group, and the top line is beginning to darken in every part of the country, and those are the people over 60 who, as i say, will translate over time into some cases into the nhs. next slide, please. and we are now beginning to see this, this is moving over to nhs activity. we are beginning to see this with a rise in the number of hospital admissions in england by age group. this isjust looking at people in different age groups. there is a rise in virtually every age group in older adults, basically anyone over the age of a5. there is anyone over the age of a5. there is a rise in the number of people going into hospital with covid over time. this is obviously going up not in a

straight line but in an accelerating line. next slide, please. if we compare the number of people in hospital at this moment with the first peak of covid, these are people in nhs beds in england by nhs region. currently, only in the north—west is this coming close to the peak that we previously had, but it is increasing in every area. and if we do nothing, the inevitable result will be at these numbers will go result will be at these numbers will 9° up result will be at these numbers will go up and they will eventually exceed the peak that we saw in the spring of this year. next slide, please. and therefore, if you look at the nhs as a whole, inpatient beds, dark blue is august, light blue september and purple is october. you can see it was still falling in august. in september initially flat and then a very gradual increase in numbers, but now

it is going up steadily on an exponential curve. next slide, please. looking at individual hospitals, nhs hospitals, these are some hospitals, these are the hospitals with more than 100 covid in patients in them. this number will increase over the next weeks and in green are hospitals which have got below half of their previous peak. in orange is the point where they actually get to half the number of people in hospital they had at the covid peak. and in red is where they exceed the number of hospital inpatients they had at the peak of the first wave of this. as you can see, the progression is steady and we have several hospitals with more inpatients with covid than we had during the peak in spring. next slide, please. fortunately, the death rate, although rising, is still significantly below the peak.

but the mortality rate, the death rate will track the number of people going into the nhs over time. with a significant delay. we are seeing increases now that are quite noticeable in the north—west, yorkshire and the humber and the north—east, and increasingly in the midlands, as well. but the other areas will follow because they will follow the nhs admissions. so that is all the data in terms of looking backwards. those data have already happened. patrick will now talk briefly about the projections forward. thank you, can i have the first slide, please. so, to recap, these are three ways of looking at it from different studies or the consensus group from the modellers, the number of people every day with covid, catching covid new and it is 50,000 plus most likely is the number and perhaps half a million people or more overall with the disease.

next slide, please. the r was relatively flat and below one. below the red line means the epidemic is shrinking, above the red line means it is growing and you can see, from august onwards, the r went above one, the epidemic grew and continues to grow so, although some of the measures that are in place have eased off perhaps the rate of growth, it is still growing and that growth, it is still growing and that growth, from a high baseline, means numbers get very big quite quickly. because of this continued r above one, the modelling group asked a numberof one, the modelling group asked a number of academic groups to create scenarios as to what might happen, on assumptions that r stays above one and goes between 1.3, 1.56 and possibly up over the course of the winter and the next slide so is the early working from two weeks ago of some of those groups looking at deaths in england over the winter

period. so this is a early work scenarios looking at this on the assumptions of r, different groups and, as you can see, different groups come up with different answers depending on their models, but what is clear from all of them, in terms of deaths over the winter, there is the potential for this to be twice as bad or more in terms of the first wave, compared to the first wave. so the models are clearly showing that this could be the case in these scenarios presented here. iwant the case in these scenarios presented here. i want to move, though, to back a delete from scenarios to looking at the six week projections, which are more based on data now and have greater certainty than you can ever get when you are looking months ahead. this shows the hospital daily admissions. you can see the first peak on the left—hand side and, then, over to the right—hand side, you come up to date, today, and then the projections forward over the next

six weeks and this is a consensus view across a number of modelling groups and what you can see here is a projection that, over the next six weeks, into early december, the numbers exceed the numbers of hospitalisations in the first wave peak. and, as chris has already said, in some hospitals, you see that already but this suggests, across the country as a whole, we would see this, some hospitals earlier than others, some a bit later but this is the projection in terms of hospital admissions over the next six weeks. with the uncertainties in the shaded blue area. slide, please. inevitably, hospitalisations lead, unfortunately, two deaths and some people. again, you can see the first wave on the left—hand side and the dotted line indicates the first of first wave and on the right—hand side can you consider projection from today going forward in the blue

and, again, the light blue indicates the uncertainty range, but what you can see, the model suggests, the models, this is a consensus, the models, this is a consensus, the models suggest increasing deaths over the next six weeks so that, by the beginning of december, the 8th of december, this is very close to the first wave peak, if nothing is done. now, clearly, if you stop the r from increasing and allowed the r to come down, you flatten this and potentially reverse it but, on the current trajectory, that is what is thought to be the prediction for deaths over the next six weeks and, of course, that would continue to go up of course, that would continue to go up because the hospitalisations already exceeded the first peek at this time, deaths would follow, so unfortunately that is a very grim picture of what this looks like in the absence of action and continued growth. next slide please. this is a complicated slide from the nhs and shows the impact of what this would

be on nhs beds. on the left—hand side is acute hospital beds and, on the right—hand side, is ventilator beds. it is the same care of you have just seen, so the first peak on the left and then the projection on the left and then the projection on the right. so the projections that i have just shown you, when the nhs do their bed calculations, as peak usage being exceeded on the 20th of november, that is obviously not a precise estimate but where this would fall on average, that the extra available beds would then be exceeded a couple of days later, three days later, and, then, extra capacity caused by having to postpone, unfortunately, all the things that nobody wants to postpone, get succeeded sometime later in december. and a similar picture is seen on ventilator beds, where the peak gets reached towards the end of november, or