Now killer virus is a global emergency
With stranded Britons set to fly home at last, health chiefs say:
A GLOBAL emergency was declared over coronavirus last night – as up to 150 Britons at the Chinese epicentre of the outbreak finally headed home.
After two days of uncertainty, they were due to take off from the city of Wuhan last night, touching down at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire shortly before 11am today.
From there, they will travel 170 miles by bus to the Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral in Merseyside, where they must spend two weeks in isolation.
The group will be housed in a sevenstorey NHS staff block with a pool table, TVs and Wi-Fi, including access to outdoor areas. Anyone with suspicious symptoms will be taken to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospital.
Passengers were asked to sign contracts agreeing to be quarantined as a condition of getting the flight.
Last night, the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency. Its director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: ‘ Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are illprepared to deal with it.’
In response, the Government upgraded the risk level of the virus to the UK from ‘ low’ to ‘ moderate’. A statement from the chief medical officers said: ‘ This does not mean we think the risk to individuals in the UK has changed at this stage, but that government should plan for all eventualities.’
The WHO’s declaration triggered a series of measures in Beijing and abroad. China is being urged to take further precautions to contain the spread, including undertaking ‘exit screening’ of passengers leaving the country.
Ministers are under pressure to explain why they took so long to evacuate the British nationals when the illness has been spreading rapidly across China since last week. The UK’s rescue flight was supposed to depart on Wednesday night, only to be delayed by Chinese authorities. The US, Japan and France had already flown their citizens home.
Some British families now face the prospect of being torn apart because officials are refusing to allow children or spouses to leave Wuhan if they hold Chinese passports. Yesterday Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said he was trying to negotiate, adding: ‘We have pressed that point with the Chinese authorities.’
The ten-and-a-half-hour flight from Wuhan is being chartered by a Spanish airline and will also carry 50 EU nationals, flying on to Spain after stopping at RAF Brize
Norton. Three military medics will be on board alongside Public Health England officials. There will also be an isolation area.
Passengers will be read a script before take-off telling them what to do if they feel ill during the flight. They will also have temperature checks before they are allowed to fly.
They will spend the next fortnight at an accommodation block usually used for nurses in the grounds of the Arrowe Park Hospital in Birkenhead, the Wirral.
They will be allowed to work during the quarantine but cannot see visitors. Food and drink will be ordered in. Two weeks is the maximum incubation period of the illness – the duration between someone becoming infected and showing symptoms.
Should anyone show signs of coronavirus, which include a cough, sore throat or temperature, they will be taken ten miles to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital’s infectious diseases unit.
Yesterday Chinese authorities said the death toll had reached 170, with 7,711 cases across 16 countries. The UK’s Department of Health confirmed that although tests had been carried out on 161 people in Britain since last week, all have come back negative.
Dr Nick Beeching, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the virus had the ‘potential to be a very serious infection’.
Professor John Ashton, a former regional director of public health, urged families to draw up an ‘emergency plan’. He said: ‘ If somebody goes down with it, people should know who is going to look after them, who is going to take the children to school.’
Virgin Atlantic last night became the latest airline to cancel flights to China – for two weeks from Sunday. British Airways earlier said bookings on China flights would be suspended until March.
‘Potential to be very serious’