Ministers are being told to end secrecy surrounding the feared increase in serious illnesses and deaths from ending Covid restrictions in England.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, admitted new daily cases could soar to 100,000 – while one expert warned of a possible 200,000 – but he refused to reveal other predictions received.
In paving the way to remove almost-all lockdown measures, the government hailed the success of vaccinations in “weakening” the link with major illness and mortality, but admitted it has not been severed entirely.
Layla Moran, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said: “The health secretary must clarify what this figure would mean for hospitalisations, deaths and long Covid cases, and what the expected impact on the NHS will be.
“The government must not fly blind into a situation where the virus is allowed to run rampant while the patchwork of support services for long Covid patients is stretched to breaking point.
“We also need urgent clarity on the impact of these plans on the clinically vulnerable and immuno-suppressed.”
Modelling for serious illness and death has been done, but is unlikely to be published for several weeks – probably in the form of minutes from the Sage advisory committee.
On Monday, Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, promised that “everything is made public”, but declined to say when that would be.
Boris Johnson will confirm next Monday that social distancing rules will disappear – allowing drinkers to order at the bar – and that night clubs will reopen, from 19 July.
Sir Patrick told the Downing Street press conference: “Modelling has been really quite accurate in terms of timing of the onset of this wave.
“We are due more modelling next week, in the run up to the decision on the 12th, and that will be made public in the usual way.”
Mr Johnson admitted there are expected to be around 50,000 new daily cases by so-called ‘Freedom Day’, but Mr Javid said that tally could double in the weeks afterwards
“As we ease and go into the summer, we expect them to rise significantly and could go as high as 100,000 case numbers,” he said.
“What matters more than anything is hospitalisation and death numbers and that is where the link is really weak.”
The health secretary said the government had not revealed “numbers on hospitalisations” from 100,000 daily infections, but did not deny they existed.
Professor Neil Ferguson, the leading epidemiologist, said: “There’s still the potential of getting very large numbers of cases and so, if we get very high numbers of cases a day – 150,000 or 200,000 – it could still cause some pressure to the health system.”
The prime minister’s spokesman defended the non-release of modelling yet, insisting it would come “in the normal way” – while saying there is no threshold for increases in deaths that would trigger new restrictions.
