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NHS medics have warned routine surgery could grind to a 'standstill' again if Covid ICU admissions approach levels of previous waves.
Currently there are more than 500 Covid patients in intensive care, double the number last month. But this is still an eighth of the 4,000 in January.
There are more than 615 general admissions each day, of which a small number become seriously ill. Admissions have tripled in just over a month.
Intensive care doctor Charlotte Summers, an honorary consultant at Cambridge University, said if ICU capacity numbers get into the thousands then routine care could be put on the backburner once again.
There are a record 5.3million people on the waiting list for routine surgery due to the pandemic, and officials have warned this could rise to 13m by the end of the year.
Dr Summers said that every Covid patient admitted to ICU stays for about two weeks. This disrupts care for other patients — such as those needing hip replacements and heart surgery — who also need the beds for their operation.
SAGE modelling warns daily hospitalisations could spiral to 2,000 in August or September, on the back of extremely high transmission following Freedom Day, which has raised concerns that ICUs could be stretched again.
In a glimmer of hope, however, official figures suggest that the rate of growth in hospital admissions is already slowing.
There are early signs that Covid hospitalisations may be slowing. NHS England data shows the rate of growth was at 50 per cent week-on-week in early January. But it has now dropped to below 40 per cent
Dr Charlotte Summers warned surging hospitalisations with the virus would once again disrupt care for most patients. It comes as Boris Johnson throws off most remaining restrictions in England today
Dr Summers told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'Patients with Covid who come to intensive care and receive mechanical ventilation on average stay about 20 days if they survive and 14 days if they don't.
'This is much longer than patients who have undergone elective surgery (operations planned in advance).
