Fears of coronavirus pandemic hitting UK grow as two new cases confirmed

Fears of a coronavirus pandemic hitting Britain grew today as a leading expert warned that the number of cases in Italy and other countries is far higher than reported — and two new cases were confirmed in the UK.

Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty announced that one person, understood to be a Londoner who recently returned from Italy, was being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in the capital.

A second individual, who had been in Tenerife and is believed to be linked to a coronavirus-hit hotel in lockdown on the island, was being cared for at the Royal Liverpool Hospital.

The cases take the total so far here to 15, including four who were repatriated from the Diamond Princess luxury liner in Japan.

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The Italian authorities have sealed off about 12 towns in Lombardy and Veneto to try to contain the spread of the virus, with the number of cases officially put at 400 last night, an increase of 80 on the previous day, with 12 deaths.

However, Professor Neil Ferguson, director of the Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College, London, said there were “definitely thousands” of cases in northern Italy.

“The great majority of cases for this virus we think have quite mild disease and they are not being detected,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

If there is an outbreak in the UK, people could be advised to “minimise social contact”, he added, but quarantining of whole towns or cities, as happened in China and Italy, is unlikely.

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As the Government sought to delay any major outbreak here until the summer when the NHS will be under less pressure:

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned: “There is every indication that the world will soon enter a pandemic phase of the coronavirus.”

He triggered an emergency response plan which aimed to ensure hospitals have enough medical supplies, personal protective equipment and staff.

Chinese health officials said 14 per cent of patients discharged from hospital after recovering from the virus later tested positive again.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is to hold a high-level meeting to ensure the capital’s readiness and resilience for further cases of coronavirus, including considering concerns over the risk of its spread on the Tube.

One of London’s top private schools, Dulwich Prep London, became the latest to announce it was closing for a few days “as a precautionary measure” after two pupils returned from Italy feeling unwell.

The FTSE-100 and other stock markets dropped sharply this morning as concerns grew over a pandemic, with trillions wiped off the value of shares globally in less than a week.

Criminals are disguising themselves as World Health Organisation officials to steal money or sensitive information with phishing emails about the coronavirus threat, the WHO warned.

Donald Trump put US vice president Mike Pence in charge of America’s coronavirus response, insisting the risk remained “very low”.

He defended his handling of the crisis after being criticised for earlier lashing out at the media, accusing it of trying “to make the Caronavirus [sic] look as bad as possible”. There have been 59 cases in the US, including 42 American passengers repatriated from the Diamond Princess.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited a hospital in Paris that has been treating coronavirus patients. Two people have died from the virus in France, a 60-year-old French man and an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.

Officials in Germany were racing to trace contacts of infected individuals after health minister Jens Spahn said: “We are at the beginning of a coronavirus epidemic in Germany.” So far there have been 21 confirmed cases.

South Korea reported 505 new cases, taking the total to 1,766, with 13 deaths, with a large proportion of them linked to a religious cult in the southeastern city of Daegu.

Iran’s state news agency said 22 people had died from coronavirus, with 141 cases confirmed, though this is believed to be a huge underestimate.

China reported 433 new cases yesteday to take the total to 78,497, with 29 more killed and a death toll so far of 2,744 people.

Professor Ferguson, a government adviser in his role on the Committee on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats, suggested the case figures were under-reporting.

Health officials in the UK are so concerned about the quarantine area in northern Italy that they have imposed similar advice to returning Britons as for the Hubei region at the centre of the outbreak in China to self-isolate for 14 days even if they do not have symptoms. “What’s been clear is that there has been transmission in Italy ongoing and not detected for at least three weeks and probably more like a month,” said Professor Ferguson. “Behind each one of those deaths probably lies about a thousand cases.”

He added that the scale of the disease meant it could not be contained by “chasing cases, isolating them”, but that “large scale community measures”, as happened in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, could reduce transmission.

Containment measures could “buy time” to push an outbreak’s peak into the summer rather than the spring or the autumn. The vast majority of people recover from coronavirus.

As the virus spread to nearly 50 countries, Saudi Arabia halted travel to the holiest sites in Islam over fears of an epidemic just months ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

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