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* UK steps up vaccinations
* Next weeks of pandemic will be the worst - medical adviser
* UK concerned about spread of COVID-19 in supermarkets
* Medical adviser says UK situation is 'appalling'
(Adds Labour leader)
By Michael Holden
LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Britain is facing the worst weeks
of the COVID-19 pandemic, its chief medical officer said on
Monday, with the health service entering a "dangerous time" as
deaths and cases hit record highs while a mass vaccination
programme picks up steam.
Deaths from the virus have now exceeded 81,000 in the United
Kingdom - the world's fifth-highest toll - with more than 3
million people testing positive. A new, more transmissible
variant of the disease is surging through the population, with
one in 20 people in parts of London now infected.
In a bid to get on top of the pandemic and to try to restore
some degree of normality by the spring, Britain is rushing out
its largest ever vaccination programme, with shots to be offered
to all those in its top four priority categories - about 15
million people - by the middle of next month.
But the government's chief medical adviser Chris Whitty
warned the situation would deteriorate in the meantime.
"The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this
pandemic in terms of numbers into the NHS (National Health
Service)," he said.
"Anybody who is not shocked by the number of people in
hospital who are seriously ill at the moment and who are dying
over the course of this pandemic, I think, has not understood
this at all. This is an appalling situation," he told BBC TV.
"SIGNIFICANT CRISIS"
During the peak of the first outbreak in April, about 18,000
people were in hospital but now there are 30,000, Whitty said,
adding the health service was facing "a significant crisis".
"Everybody says that this is the most dangerous time we've
really had in terms of numbers into the NHS," he said.
On Friday, London's mayor said the British capital's
hospitals were in danger of being overwhelmed by COVID patients,
and ministers and health chiefs have pleaded with people to
respect lockdown measures and stay at home unless it was
essential to go out.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government is pinning its
hopes on a mass vaccination programme to offer a way out of the
pandemic by the spring.
Britain was the first country to approve vaccines developed
by Oxford-AstraZeneca and by Pfizer/BioNTech
, and on Friday approved Moderna's shot. It
is aiming to offer shots to 15 million people by the middle of
next month.
To reach that target, which will require delivering 2
million vaccines a week, the government is opening seven big
vaccination centres while additional doctors' surgeries,
hospitals and some pharmacies will also start delivering shots.
"The vaccinations are really beginning to ramp up, 200,000 a
day, we've done an incredible job this past week," Nadhim
Zahawi, the minister in charge of the vaccination programme,
told Sky News.
Those in the four highest risk levels, including those over
70, the most clinically vulnerable and frontline health workers,
will be offered the vaccines by Feb. 15, he said.
"I hope they do. Let’s hold them to that," opposition Labour
leader Keir Starmer, who has repeatedly accused Johnson of being
too slow to respond to the pandemic, said of the target.
"Britain shouldn’t have one of the highest death tolls in
Europe, and the deepest recession. We shouldn’t be facing the
slowest recovery and we shouldn’t be suffering the tragedy of so
many deaths every day from this virus."
There have been calls for the government to take harder
action against those who break the lockdown rules, but Zahawi
said ministers did not want to "go any tougher". However, he
cautioned there was concern about the spread of the virus in
supermarkets and there was a need to ensure people wore masks
while in them.
(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, William Schomberg and
James Davey; writing by Michael Holden; editing by Estelle
Shirbon, Guy Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan)
