UK declares coronavirus poses ‘serious and imminent threat’

More patients test positive in England, and new powers brought in

Four more patients in England have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of UK cases to eight.

The four people infected are all understood to be contacts of a businessman who was diagnosed in Brighton last week after contracting the virus at a conference in Singapore.

It comes as the County Oak Medical Centre in Brighton closed after a staff member was infected, and the government introduced powers to forcibly quarantine anyone with the virus.

The businessman infected in Singapore stopped at a chalet in the Alpine resort area of Contamines Montjoie near Mont Blanc in France – where five other Britons subsequently took ill with the virus – before heading back to the UK.

The Department of Health confirmed the four people newly-diagnosed contracted the virus in France and are being treated at specialist infection centres at St Thomas’ and the Royal Free hospitals in London.

EasyJet confirmed the businessman flew from Geneva back to the UK on January 28 on flight EZS8481, and Public Health England is trying to trace other passengers who might be at risk.

The businessman is also linked to a British man in Majorca who tested positive for coronavirus, while his wife and two daughters tested negative.

The developments come as the government declared coronavirus a “serious and imminent threat to public health”.

The Department of Health said people with coronavirus can now be forcibly quarantined and will not be free to leave, and can be forcibly sent into isolation if they pose a threat.

The PA news agency understands that the decision was in response to one of the Britons who returned from Wuhan in China – the source of the coronavirus outbreak – attempting to leave isolation at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside.

Elsewhere, there are now 130 confirmed cases of coronavirus on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in the port of Yokohama, Japan’s health minister said.

There have been more than 40,000 cases of the virus globally, mostly in China.

The death toll in China now stands at 908.

Picture: Rex/ Shutterstock. County Oak Medical Centre in Brighton closed after a staff member was infected.