NEW DELHI: Senior medics in UK have predicted that the country will face an exponentially growing death rate from COVID-19 within weeks unless urgent action is taken to halt a rapidly spreading second wave of the outbreak.

The country already has the biggest official Covid-19 death toll in all of Europe and the fifth largest in the world. The new Covid-19 cases in the country are rising by at least 6,000 per day.

Chris Whitty, the country’s chief medical officer, and Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, cautioned that if left unrestricted the epidemic would reach 50,000 new cases per day by mid-October in the United Kingdom.

The virus is spreading across all areas of the country and less than 8% of the population have antibodies to the virus, though in London around 17% of the population may have antibodies, Vallance said.

Pertinent to mention that over 21 million people have been affected worldwide by the invisible virus and more than 9.66 lakh people have died due to the disease.