CHINA BLOCKS UK’S RESCUE FLIGHT

Beijing refuses to let Britain jet up to 200 home today

PLANS to evacuate up to 200 Britons from the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak were in chaos last night after China refused to let the UK Government fly its citizens home.

A plane had been scheduled to bring them back today – but Beijing denied permission for the flight to touch down, leaving the Britons in limbo.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are doing everything we can to get British people in Wuhan safely back to the UK.

‘A number of countries’ flights have been unable to take off as planned... we [are] working urgently to organise a flight to the UK as soon as possible. We remain in close contact with the Chinese authorities and conversations are ongoing at all levels.’

Should the flight go ahead, Britons will only be allowed to board if they sign contracts agreeing to be quarantined for up to two weeks. Those who accept the terms face ‘supported isolation’ in a hotel, military base or other public facility after arriving back home.

All passengers will be screened beforehand and anyone showing symptoms of coronavirus – including a sore throat, cough or temperature – will have to remain in China. As the World Health Organisation prepared to meet today to consider whether the disease has become a ‘global health emergency’:

■ British families faced being torn apart as officials banned Chinese and dual nationals from leaving Wuhan;

■ The number of cases jumped by a third in a day to nearly 6,000, meaning infections in China have overtaken the SARS outbreak;

■ British Airways cancelled all flights to mainland China for the next two days;

■ A shortage of face masks prompted Chinese travellers to put bottles over their heads as a means of protection;

■ The Department of Health said there were no cases in Britain despite 130 people being tested.

Kharn Lambert, 31, a PE teacher who lives in Wuhan, told the BBC yesterday: ‘I think it’s been an absolute shambles, I don’t think the Government has really known what they’ve been doing. I don’t think they have had as much contact with the Chinese authorities as they say because if they had... they would have been able to put plans in place sooner.’

Following similar missions by the US and Japanese governments this week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock had yesterday prepared to rescue British citizens from Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei.

He led a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee where officials discussed how to quarantine such high numbers. Ministers are concerned about the rapid spread of the virus and the fact that infections may be passed on before symptoms appear. For this reason they have decided to keep all British citizens from Wuhan in isolation for the illness’s maximum incubation period of 14 days – the time between someone becoming infected and showing signs of the disease.

Sources could not confirm last night whether the Britons would be kept in hotels, a military base or other facility such as an unused school or university buildings.

A Government source said: ‘Passengers will be safely isolated for two weeks, with all necessary medical attention.’ Yesterday the number of confirmed cases of the virus surged by 30 per cent to 5,974, with 162 deaths.

There have now been more infections of coronavirus on the Chinese mainland than during the SARS outbreak of 2002/3, although the latter claimed more lives.

The illness emerged in humans last month and is believed to have jumped from snakes, having previously crossed the species barrier from bats. Scientists have pinpointed the epicentre to a food market in Wuhan where snakes, bats and other wild animals were on sale illegally.

‘An absolute shambles’

IT’S difficult to avoid the impression that the Government is making up its response to the coronavirus crisis as it goes along.

We assume its plan to deal with the killer epidemic wasn’t scrawled on the back of a cigarette packet. But it’s certainly seemed incoherent.

Only a week ago, anyone disembarking from planes in London from Wuhan in China, where the incurable respiratory illness originated, was given only a medical leaflet and a quick once-over by nurses.

Now the Health Secretary says evacuated Britons must be quarantined – possibly on a military base – for up to two weeks.

That’s eminently sensible. After all, the death toll in China has passed 160.

But wouldn’t it reassure the public if ministers appeared to have a better grasp of how to deal with the outbreak?

An airlift of Britons trapped in Wuhan was blocked by Beijing last night (although France, Japan and the US have already carried out rescues). Many complain of being left in the dark by the Foreign Office.

Of course, advice is not always simple to provide. But UK citizens, frightened and isolated, shouldn’t be made to feel they’ve been abandoned.

Last night the World Health Organisation said every nation should be ‘ on alert’. Ministers have been warned – now they must step up to the plate.