We’ve been abandoned by PM say Britons in virus siege city
THE 300 Britons stranded in the locked-down Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak criticised Boris Johnson yesterday for failing to come to their rescue.
The Prime Minister said the Government was doing everything it could with officials looking at the possibility of arranging airlifts for expats and travellers from Wuhan.
The death toll has risen to 81 – all in China – with the number of cases worldwide put as high as 8,000.
Outbreaks have been confirmed in Hong Kong, France and Australia.
The Foreign Office has come under fire for urging people to leave the stricken zone when all transport had been suspended.
Among countries actively rescuing its nationals were Japan, due to begin airlifts for 430 people today, and France, which will bring 800 home.
Serious
One of the Britons stranded in Wuhan, teacher Kharn Lambert said there was a lot of anger in the city’s British community.
The 31-year-old, from Lancaster, told how he and his 81-year-old grandmother Veronica Theobald, who had been visiting him, have been unable to leave. He said: “It’s getting pretty much into a serious situation for us now. She suffers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and she’s running out of medication at the moment.
“She has probably enough medication to last another week and then we’re struggling to find out what we can do after that. They’ve not really said what they’re going to do or how they’re going to do it.
“Their advice on their website is ‘If you’re inWuhan, get out’.We are locked into the city. It seems the most ridiculous thing to tell us to do when we can’t get out of here.
“There is a lot of anger among the British community at the moment because we’re not being contacted, we’re not being told what’s going on.We see other countries contacting their citizens to try and help them in the best way they can and we’ve had absolutely nothing.”
Bethan Webber, whose mother, Birmingham City University lecturer Yvonne Griffiths, is in Wuhan, said: “We’re just a bit helpless and hopeless really. We don’t have any means at this end to do anything about it.”
Mr Johnson said: “We are looking at everything we can to give reassurance to those people in Wuhan. You will be hearing a bit more in due course but I don’t want to pre-empt the decisions we are going to make.”
Meanwhile, China is pressing ahead with plans to build a hospital in just 10 days to deal with the outbreak. After five days of work, it has already started to take shape.