The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care is "really worrying", an expert has said.
Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 over the past month had increased from a “few hundred people per day” to “thousands”.
She insisted that she was not "scaremongering" as she warned the UK was at a “tipping point”.
“So right now, we have got over 3,100 people in hospital with coronavirus around the UK," she told BBC Breakfast.
"Actually 500 of those are in ITU (Intensive Therapy Unit) beds, that’s really worrying. A month ago we only had 60 people in the whole of the UK in ITU beds.
“So we are seeing a very worrying trend at the moment.”
It comes after coronavirus cases surged by 14,162 overnight, bringing total infections to date to 544,275.
A further 70 people died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of 9am on Wednesday, the Government also confirmed.
However, separate figures published by British statistics agencies show there have now been 58,000 deaths registered in the country where the disease was mentioned on the death certificate.
Dr Stokes-Lampard said: “I don’t come from an organisation that does scaremongering, we care about people, we care about our patients and want to do the best for them and to keep doing the best for them through what was always going to be a difficult winter.
“Let’s not make it a spectacularly difficult winter.”
Asked about local lockdowns, she added: “I think the variation in rules, what lockdown means in one place to another, I think is really difficult, it is confusing, and I am a great fan of clarity and consistency and messaging.”
However, Dr Stokes-Lampard pleaded with people to follow the rules in areas where local lockdowns have been imposed.
She explained that a lot of cities are “now seeing serious problems” around the spread of the virus.
“As the cases go up, a few weeks later hospital admissions go up, a few weeks after that, unfortunately, intensive care goes up and then deaths go up," she said.
When asked about Covid-19 hotspots, where cases are rising, she added: “We have all heard in the news about the challenges in the north-east and north-west of England.
“But there are other hotspots too. A lot of cities are now seeing serious problems. I’m based in the Midlands and we are seeing problems in Birmingham, but we are also seeing issues in Coventry, Nottingham, and it’s working further south.
“We are also seeing some interesting patterns starting to happen in London again. So yes this is a problem actually affecting all four nations of the UK.”
