Chris Whitty warns of new lockdown within weeks as UK records 63 deaths in highest daily toll since March and cases soar, especially in Englishmen after Euros

• Professor Chris Whitty has warned that England is 'not by any means out of the woods yet' and could still be plunged into another lockdown within weeks amid a surge in cases and a spike in hospitalisations across the nation.
• The chief medical officer warned that doctors across the country could soon be faced with 'scary numbers again' and that more people could be fighting the disease in hospital in 'five, six, seven, eight weeks time.'
• His comment comes after data showed COVID-19 cases have spiralled quicker among men in their 20s compared to women following the Euro 2020 football tournament.
• Speaking at a British Science Museum event, Professor Whitty said: 'Currently this epidemic is doubling. It's 4,000, from 4,000 to 8,000 and so on, it does not take many doubling times till you're into very very large numbers indeed.'
• The scientist went on to say that the country could 'get into trouble again surprisingly fast' and we were 'not by any means out of the woods yet.'
• He continued: 'I don't think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast. We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things.
• 'But this has got a long way to run in the UK, and it's got even further to run globally.'
• Professor Whitty said the key on July 19, the nation's 'Freedom Day,' was to take things incredibly slowly, adding that he fully expected most people to continue to take precautions.
• 'If you look over what people have done, and in fact if you look at what people intend to do now, people have been incredibly good at saying, 'I may be a relatively low risk, but people around me are at high risk, and I'm going to modify my behaviours,' he said.
• The chief medical officer added that in the medium term, the virus could mutate into a 'vaccine escape variant' that could take the UK 'some of the way backwards' into the worst days of the pandemic.
• He said: 'The further out in time we go, the more tools we have at our disposal from science, the less likely that is but you can never take that possibility completely off the table. But you know, science has done a phenomenal job so far and it will continue to do so.'
• He added that people should not be 'mesmerised' by the anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown movements.
• 'Although people who think this is not a big problem and make a lot of noise and get on quite a lot of news channels, actually they are a very, very small minority of the population,' he said.
• It comes as Public Health England data today showed 10,267 more young men than women were infected over the last weeks, with the gender gap having widened since the Euro 2020 tournament kicked off.
• Cases have remained roughly the same between men and women throughout the pandemic. But they began to diverge after June 13, when England beat Croatia 1-0 in their first match.