Coronavirus: People staying at home 'making a difference' to COVID-19 fight
The latest virus-related hospital admissions numbers "may suggest" the lockdown is already having an effect, says Sir Patrick.
Monday 30 March 2020 20:56, UK
People staying at home to stop coronavirus spreading faster across the UK are "making a difference", a top government official has said.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientific adviser, tried to encourage the public to carry on social distancing as the country enters week two of lockdown.
He said the measures were vital to significantly cut the number of people passing on COVID-19, on the same day the UK death toll rose to 1,415.
It is seven days since Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a historic address to the nation and told the public to stay home to save lives and protect the NHS.
Since then, most businesses have been urged to close and let employees work from home and police have been given powers to issue £60 fines for "non-urgent" travel.
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In a message that might boost the morale of a country subject to measures unseen in living memory, Sir Patrick said that people staying in their homes were helping the national effort.
"The measures are in place, they are making a difference," he announced at the daily Downing Street coronavirus briefing.
"They are decreasing the contact which is so important to spread the disease and we're doing a good job at cutting that down."
While the number of hospital patients with COVID-19 has risen since mid-March, Sir Patrick said the lockdown "will be reducing the number of cases of transmission in the community and decreasing the number of cases overall".
He pointed to a graph showing the number of coronavirus-related hospital admissions in England, saying the figures had "gone up pretty much the same amount each day for the last few days".
"That shows that it's going up not in an increasing amount but in a constant amount which may suggest that we're already beginning to see some effect through," he explained.