UK coronavirus live: calls grow for UK-wide lockdown as 25,000 people could soon be in hospital with Covid

Latest updates: scientist warns hospital patient numbers could double in weeks; further 367 Covid-19 deaths confirmed on Tuesday.

The head of the students’ union, Matt Crilly, has written to the Scottish government’s education secretary John Swinney, urging him to consider alternative, or additional, measures to self-isolation – including asymptomatic testing – to avoid long-term self-isolation among the student population.

The NHS Covid-19 app has been updated after an issue around unsupported languages left some in England and Wales unable to access it.

The government had already confirmed it was scrapping a planned multi-year spending review and instead will hold only a one-year review due to the focus on dealing with the current pandemic.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the scientist whose modelling prompted the UK-wide lockdown in March, has said measures in tier 2 and tier 3 areas are “unlikely to cause daily cases and deaths to fall rapidly”.

He told the PA Media news agency that modelling suggested this could leave the country with “high levels” of Covid cases, demand on healthcare and deaths “until spring 2021”.

The concern at the moment is that even if the measures adopted in tier 2 and tier 3 areas slow spread in the next few weeks, they are unlikely to cause daily cases and deaths to fall rapidly.

A Scottish government spokesman said: “We are aware of [Salmond’s] letter.

The city and neighbouring boroughs had been preparing for tier 3 restrictions to come into force on Thursday, but a surge in cases means they are likely to be imposed on all of Nottinghamshire.

The head of the NHS trust, which runs Nottingham’s two main hospitals, previously said some non-urgent surgery and appointments would have to be cancelled because of a rise in Covid-19 admissions.

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 could more than double within weeks, the former chief scientific adviser to the government has said

Prof Sir Mark Walport said it was “not unrealistic” to think that there could be 25,000 people in hospitals by the end of November

Asked if it is not unrealistic to think of 25,000 people being in hospital by the end of November, Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said: “It’s certainly not unrealistic to think about that.”

On hospital admissions, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “France, which has a very similar population to us, currently has about 16,000 people in hospital

So, the answer is that with our current measures - which are similar but with variations in different parts of Europe - there’s still evidence that there isn’t as much social distancing as there was when we clamped down on the first wave

The environment secretary, George Eustice, who is doing the interview rounds on behalf of the government this morning, has said tiered restrictions for local areas have been introduced in a “timely way” and a national lockdown is “not appropriate”

Speaking on Times Radio on Wednesday morning, he said: “In some ways we’ve always anticipated that there would be a second spike

It said in a statement: “We are seeing increasing demand on the hospital which is in turn meaning that our inpatient beds are at capacity

The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said the government’s failure to use the school half-term for a circuit-breaker lockdown means they now need to “do something quickly to save Christmas”

Ashworth said ministers had “lost a window of opportunity” for a national lockdown over the holidays, which its scientific advisers and Labour had been requesting for “two weeks or so”

Speaking on Times Radio on Wednesday morning, he said government sources are planning for a tier 3 lockdown in most areas of the country “at some point in November”

The government have got to do something quickly to save Christmas for everybody, because we want people to have a family Christmas, and I think it would be awful if people didn’t have that

A further 367 Covid-19 deaths were confirmed yesterday – the largest number since May, and 265 higher than the previous day

More than 9,000 people were in hospital with the virus on Tuesday, with Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust the latest to cancel some non-urgent operations

The government’s delay in announcing full details of tier 3 restrictions in Nottingham has been described as “unacceptable” by the city’s council leader

The city, alongside areas of Nottinghamshire including Broxtowe, Rushcliffe and Gedling, were expected to have been placed under the strictest lockdown measures from midnight tomorrow

But the government has reportedly withdrawn its agreement for a “rethink” of the areas that will be affected amid rising infection rates in other parts of the county

Unacceptable delay in Government confirmation of Nottingham’s Tier 3 details