BORIS Johnson is likely to have to follow Nicola Sturgeon in imposing a ban on visiting between households, the Prime Minister has been told by his chief medical officer.

Professor Chris Whitty is understood to believe more restrictions are inevitable as winter approaches and that measures including a 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants will not bring the epidemic under control, according to a report today.

Johnson claimed to have struck a “delicate balance” between virus control and “sheltering the economy”. 

But his strategy appeared insufficient when Scotland and Northern Ireland both announced bans across the countries on visiting other households indoors.

Unveiling the new measures the First Minister justified the move across Scotland saying officials “advise that we must take account of the fact that household interaction is a key driver of transmission”.

The Times reports today that chief medical officers from all four UK nations met on Monday to agree advice to their respective governments. The paper reported that it understood that Professor Whitty concurred with Smith. 

Jonathan Van Tam and Jenny Harries, Professor Whitty’s deputies, are understood to have also expressed concern in meetings that the measures did not go far enough.

All three, however, accepted that it was reasonable for Johnson to try more limited measures first.

Johnson told the Commons yesterday he would “deploy greater firepower, with significantly greater restrictions” if the R rate of infections did not fall below one.

“I fervently want to avoid taking this step,” he told MPs. “But we will only be able to avoid it if our new measures work and our behaviour changes.”

In a bid to curtail the virus, the Prime Minister announced new measures for England including advice for office workers to work from home and fines for people who broke rules on social distancing and mask wearning. He said the measures would likely be in place for six months.

He also announced the army would be on standby to help the police enforce the coronavirus laws.

“We will spare no effort in developing vaccines, treatments, new forms of mass testing, but unless we palpably make progress we should assume that the restrictions that I have announced will remain in place for perhaps six months,” he said.

“For the time being, this virus is a fact of our lives and I must tell the house and the country that our fight against it will continue.”

In Scotland the ban on visiting other households which the First Minister advised people should comply with today and the 10pm pub curfew, which comes into force on Friday, are to be reviewed in three weeks time.

She has also warned additional measures could be introduced if the new curbs fail to reduce the spread of the virus.

The latest figures published by the European Centre for Disease Control show that the UK has had the highest number of deaths from Covid 19 in Europe.

The centre reported that by 22 September 41,788 people in the UK had died as a result of Covid 19, compared to Italy which had the second highest death toll at 35,744. Germany which has been praised for its handling of the virus has had 9396 Covid 19 fatalities.