Following a “very worrying” surge in coronavirus cases are engulfing across Birmingham and the West Midlands, more than 1.5m people are to enter into the strict tier 3 lockdown “imminently.”
Infection rates are soaring across the two regions and intensive care beds are filling up fast in hospitals.
A senior local authority official said that it is a “matter of when, not if” that the West Midlands will enter into tier 3.
Leaders of the seven metropolitan councils are to hold talks with Any Street the Mayor of West Midlands.
Medical and scientific experts are warning that there needs to be a change before Christmas as they estimate almost 100,000 people per day are becoming infected.
They have said that the current measures the government has put in place are “not sufficient” as the pandemic is “growing exponentially.”
If the Prime Minister does not place England into a full national lockdown now, then it will be ineffective in bringing down the infections across the country, the government scientific advisory group has warned.
Professor Steven Riley of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London said, “Our data show that there’s absolutely no reason to expect that exponential rise to change to the next few weeks, regardless of what we do, because we’re measuring infections occurring in the community.
‘If we are going to consider at some point over the winter that we may have to do something much more stringent, then it becomes a question of time.
“I think these results do argue for something sooner rather than later.”
Sir Jeremy Farrar, who sits on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), has said the UK “cannot continue to just observe and not act.”
In a tweet, he wrote: “U.K delayed in March resulting one of worst outcomes globally. Sept/Oct we have had all the data, trajectory epidemic clear + experience first wave & other countries.
“Delaying is itself a decision with consequences.”