The government has been urged to take a tougher approach to coronavirus to prevent between 35,000 and 70,000, according to scientists. It comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson implemented more stringent measures and effectively placed the UK on lockdown.

Estimating so-called “excess deaths”, a study looked at the potential death toll in elderly people who have underlying medical conditions.

The team of clinicians, statisticians and epidemiologists from University College London, University College London Hospital, the University of Cambridge and Health Data Research UK said without strong suppression measures taken seriously more people could die.

Lead author Dr Amitava Banerjee, associate professor in clinical data science, said: “The UK government is currently following a partial suppression policy of population-wide social distancing, combined with home isolation of cases, as well as school and university closures, but this is currently not mandated.

“Our study indicates that the government should implement more stringent suppression at population level to avoid not just immediate deaths but also long-term excess deaths.”

It is based on the records of 3.8million adults as kept by the NHS and concludes that not enough is being done to protect and safeguard vulnerable people.

On Sunday, Mr Johnson announced a plan to “shield” 1.5million people who were considered to be at high-risk from the virus.

The army has since been pledged to help supply the vulnerable with essential food and medicine.

The study also warns the COVID-19 pandemic may cause deaths among those infected as well as those not infected who have underlying conditions.

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This is because of the impact on their lives and the ability of the NHS to care for their needs.

The scientists warned that around 20 percent of the UK has one of the high-risk underlying conditions.

Dr Banerjee said: “Cardiovascular disease, for example, is not on the government list of conditions announced on Sunday.

“But in this paper, we show that the one-year mortality for people with cardiovascular disease is 6 per cent; and for people with two or more underlying health conditions is 11 per cent.

“To date, only people with single disease risks have been included in the high-risk group, and not those with multiple diseases who are at a greater risk.”

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Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the coronavirus disease pandemic is “accelerating”, with more than 300,000 cases now confirmed.

It took just 67 days for the first reported COVID-19 cases to reach 100,000.

Despite the downwards spiral, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was optimistic that the virus’ trajectory could still be changed.

He urged countries to adopt regions testing and contact-tracing strategies.

In a joint news conference with Fifa president Gianni Infantino, he announced the launch of a “kick out coronavirus” campaign featuring footballers.

He said: “What matters most is what we do.

“You can’t win a football game by defending.

“You have to attack as well.”

Although he praised the social-distancing measures in place around the world, Mr Tedros described them as “defensive measures that will not help us to win”.

He added: “To win, we need to attack the virus with aggressive and targeted tactics – testing every suspected case, isolating and caring for every confirmed case, and chasing and quarantining every close contact.”

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