Lockdown May Kill 75,000 People: This Is The Official Projection As UK Heads Towards Another Shut In

Nearly 75,000 people could die from non-Covid causes as a result of lockdown, according to a devastating official figures buried in a 188-page document.

The startling research, presented to the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), will further increase pressure on Boris Johnson to hold back on introducing further coronavirus restrictions.

The document reveals 16,000 people died as a result of the chaos in hospitals and care homes in March and April alone.

It estimates a further 26,000 will lose their lives within a year if people continue to stay away from A&E and the problems in social care persist.

And an additional 31,900 could die over the next five years as a result of missed cancer diagnoses, cancelled operations and the health impacts of a recession.

The toll of deaths directly linked to the virus last night stood at 41,936.

The estimates, drawn up by civil servants at the Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics and the Home Office, were presented to Sage at a meeting on July 15. The documents stressed that had nothing been done to stop the spread of the virus in March, 400,000 people could have died of Covid.

And if the NHS had been overrun, this figure might have even soared to 1.4million. But they acknowledged the restrictions had significant unintended consequences.

The revelation came a day after leading pathologist Dr John Lee warned in the Mail that we were at risk of making the cure worse than the disease.

The figures are bound to lead critics to ask why neither Health Secretary Matt Hancock or Home Secretary Priti Patel, whose officials compiled the report, has volunteered the information.

Both have spoken of the number of people who may die from Covid without stringent restrictions. But they have been less forthcoming about the risk that the measures themselves could lead to many non-Covid deaths, despite being made aware of the danger more than two months ago.

Many people took the 'stay at home' message to heart in the early days of the crisis, with hospital admissions plummeting as a result. But despite fears in March that the NHS would be overwhelmed by a Covid surge, most hospitals were never overrun, and the emergency Nightingale hospitals set up in the spring remained empty.

The document said: 'We estimate changes to emergency care may account for 6,000 existing excess deaths in March and April 2020. If emergency care in hospitals continues to be low for a full 12 months, this could result in an additional 10,000 excess deaths.' It added: 'We estimate there were approximately 10,000 non-Covid-19 excess deaths of care home residents in March and April 2020... there could be an additional 16,000 non-Covid-19 excess deaths over 12 months in care home residents.'

In the longer term, the officials estimate a 12,500 deaths over five years because of cancelled operations.

The impact on GP services could result in 1,400 deaths over five years from missed cancer diagnoses alone. The true impact will be much higher, they said, but they had been unable to model the impact on any disease area other than cancer.

The officials said lockdown will also lead to some reductions in mortality. Better air quality, fewer road accidents and less childhood disease will reduce overall deaths by roughly 1,000 over a year, they calculated.

And a further 4,000 lives will be saved thanks to 'healthier lifestyles in the short-term'. They estimated that 67,000 people will lose their lives directly from Covid across the UK by next March, although that figure was calculated before infections started rising again this month.

Added to the non-Covid deaths, the total death toll from the pandemic will reach 101,000 across the UK by next March, rising to nearly 150,000 in five years. Finally, they warned of the devastation of a long-term economic downturn could lead to 18,000 excess deaths over two to five years.

An NHS spokesman said: 'While some people had understandable concerns about coming forward for care during the pandemic, the NHS stayed opened to care for all who needed it.

'For every person with Covid that NHS hospitals treated during the first wave, clinicians were also treating two non-Covid inpatients as well as 200,000 receiving cancer treatment and GPs carrying out more than 102million consultations.'