Families who get together over Christmas will "know" if close mixing over the festive period later causes their relatives to catch coronavirus or even die from it, an expert has warned.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said the advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) that each day of relaxation of coronavirus rules at Christmas could need five days of tighter restrictions "doesn't sound implausible".
The statistician and chairman of the Winton Centre for risk and evidence communication at the University of Cambridge told BBC Radio's 4 Today programme that he thought mixing at Christmas could lead to "tens of thousands" of more Covid cases, requiring an extra clampdown. "It is quite plausible that a few days of