UK coronavirus epidemic now 'highly likely' as illness spreads 'person to person'

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Coronavirus is probably already spreading from person to person in parts of Britain and an epidemic is now “highly likely”, the Government’s chief medical officer said today.

Professor Chris Whitty made it clear that “community transmission” of Covid-19 is now believed to have occurred beyond the two cases — one in Surrey and another in Essex — which were thought to have no links to outbreaks abroad.

Scottish health chiefs this morning announced two more cases and there is expected to be a significant rise today from yesterday’s tally of 51 for the whole country.

“We probably do in my view have some onward transmission here in the UK. I don’t think it is a large amount or we would have detected it,” Professor Whitty told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

As the number of cases continued to rise sharply around the world, he added: “It is much more likely than not that we are going to deal with a significant epidemic. How big it is I think is currently still pretty uncertain but that there will be an epidemic is now highly likely.”

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The Government’s four-pronged response battle plan to the virus was now set to shift into the second stage to try to delay a major outbreak into the spring/early summer as efforts to stop it getting a grip in Britain appear on the brink of being overwhelmed.

“We are on the borderline between containing and delaying,” added the chief medical officer.

Professor Whitty outlined the threat facing Britain as:

  • Leading infectious disease expert Professor Neil Ferguson said the world had lost the battle to stop coronavirus and estimated there are already 50,000 to 100,000 cases in Italy alone. The death toll there has risen to 79, with the number of cases reaching 2,502, mainly in the north. South Korea reported 516 new cases, taking the total to 5,328, with at least 32 deaths.
  • The Government launched a major public health campaign, urging people to regularly wash their hands as a key part of the fight against the disease.
  • A senior health expert warned the NHS could be “overwhelmed” if there is a sudden epidemic. But health chiefs believe the health service will cope and are preparing for a major “reconfiguration”, which could be even more dramatic than postponing 50,000 operations and redeploying hundreds more doctors and nurses.
  • Ministers were planning to introduce emergency legislation within days to tackle the crisis, ranging from allowing video testimony in courts to relaxing health and safety laws. The Bill, which the Government hopes to pass by Easter, is said to run to 50 clauses.
  • The London Book Fair, due to take place from March 10 to 12, has been cancelled over the escalation of coronavirus in Europe.
  • A hospital worker in Cumbria tested positive for coronavirus, though officials said the staff member had self-isolated since returning from a trip to northern Italy and had not been in contact with patients.

Protecting elderly and people with underlying health conditions is a key focus of the Government’s blueprint and Professor Whitty said “extreme” measures could be taken.

“For the great majority of people this will be a mild or moderate disease, anything from a sniffle to having to go to bed for a few days rather like with mild flu,” he explained.

However, if the UK is hit by a very large epidemic, “then it will put very high pressure on the NHS” and there could be “several weeks which could be very difficult” for the health service and wider society, he said.

Professor Ferguson, director of the Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College, London, said measures from the battle plan could be triggered within days, if not weeks. “The world tried very hard to stop this virus altogether,” he said. “You can see from the statistics, the number of countries affected, that that battle is really over.”

Pressed on whether banning flights to disease hotspots could protect the UK, he added: “The last time the world saw a pandemic probably of this scale, with this level of risk, was back in 1918 [Spanish Flu] when we had no airlines.”

Health chiefs are seeking to delay any major outbreak until the weather is warmer and the virus may struggle to spread so easily and the health service will be under less pressure.

Helen Buckingham, director of strategy and operations at the Nuffield Trust independent think tank, told the Standard: “In the event of a steady spread of coronavirus across the NHS, the normal preparations that the NHS is putting into place should be adequate.

“The risk is a sudden peak of activity which could overwhelm capacity available, particularly if it is over a widespread area.”

NHS trusts are being urged to ramp up their plans for tackling Covid-19, including seeing patients via video link. In a letter, NHS strategic incident director Professor Keith Willett and incident director Stephen Groves said acute wards may be used and coronavirus patients should be separated out. They also stated that a level-4 NHS incident has been declared, the highest level.

The document says managers should review critical care and high dependency capacity and consider how it could be increased.

Government scientific experts have predicted the UK’s coronavirus outbreak could last four to six months. There are now more than 90,000 cases worldwide with more than 3,000 deaths.

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