Illness could close schools ‘for months’

England’s chief medical officer has warned that schools could potentially close for two months or more in the UK if the spread of coronavirus intensifies.

Professor Chris Whitty warned that onward transmission between people who had not been to a coronavirus hotspot was “just a matter of time”.

His comments came as two more people in England were diagnosed with Covid-19, taking the UK total to 15 cases.

Speaking at a Nuffield Trust summit in London, Prof Whitty said: “If this becomes a global epidemic, then the UK will get it, and if it does not become a global epidemic, the UK is perfectly capable of containing and getting rid of individual cases leading to onward transmission.”

But he said onward transmission was “just a matter of time in my view”,

If it is something which is containable, the UK can contain it. PROF CHRIS WHITTY

adding: “If it is something which is containable, the UK can contain it. If it is not containable, it will be noncontainable everywhere and then it is coming our way.”

He said there could be a potential “social cost” if the virus intensifies which could include actions such as reducing mass gatherings and closing schools.

He said he was not saying that would happen, but that the effectiveness of such strategies would have to be weighed up against social cost.

“This is something we face as really quite a serious problem for society potentially if this goes out of control.”

The total number of Covid-19 cases in the UK has risen to 16, after three people were diagnosed yesterday.

The first positive test for coronavirus in Northern Ireland was confirmed at a briefing in Belfast.

Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency said it was “working rapidly” to identify anyone the patient came into contact with to prevent a further spread.

The patient had recently returned from northern Italy and had previously been in Dublin.

Another of the new UK cases – a parent at a Buxton primary school in Derbyshire – contracted the virus in Tenerife, where 168 Britons have been confined to a hotel on the south-west of the island.

The other person contracted the virus in Italy, which has become the worst affected country in Europe with more than 400 cases and 14 deaths.

One patient has been taken to the specialist infectious diseases centre at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and the other to the Royal Free Hospital in London.