Coronavirus pandemic alert as UK and Italy hit
Four new cases in Britain, and Lombardy towns in lockdown after major outbreak
FOUR new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the UK last night, as experts warned of an impending pandemic, with parts of Italy in lockdown after a massive rise in the number of new infections there.
The new British patients had been passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were in quarantine on The Wirral when they fell ill, having returned from Japan on Saturday.
They have now been transferred to specialist NHS infection centres. Two patients are in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, one is in the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the fourth is at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, NHS England said.
Prof Keith Willett, NHS strategic incident director for coronavirus, said: “These specialist centres are well prepared to deal with cases and earlier this year, the Newcastle unit successfully treated and discharged two patients who had contracted the virus.”
It brings the total number of UK cases to 13, and comes as the European threat dramatically increased, with three deaths in Italy following the diagnosis of at least 155 cases.
Eleven towns in the northern provinces of Lombardy and Veneto were put into official lockdown, with Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, banning anyone from coming in or out without permission.
Armani held its Milan Fashion Week show behind closed doors yesterday, and the Venice Carnival was cancelled.
The Italian outbreak coincided with an explosion of cases in Iran and South Korea, leading some experts to conclude that the opportunity for containing coronavirus has now passed. Virologists fear it is being spread by carriers who have minimal or no symptoms, making it harder to track.
Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, placed his country on its highest level of alert after six people died and more than 600 fell ill, while Iran reported eight deaths from 43 cases.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at Exeter University, who warned against quarantining passengers on board the Diamond Princess, said: “It is clear that all the important ingredients for a pandemic are now present. It’s better to be honest and say it.”
He said the Government should add Italy to its list of countries from which returnees should self-isolate if they develop viral symptoms. At present, only nine Asian countries or territories are on the list.
Many British holidaymakers will have spent the half-term break in the affected regions of Italy.
The emergence of four cases among Diamond Princess passengers who were allowed to return to the UK will raise questions about the quality of testing and decision making at Yokohama, Japan, where the ship is docked. More than 600 of the cruise ship’s passengers have been diagnosed and three have died.
Other British passengers including David and Sally Abel, who were on the cruise for their 50th wedding anniversary, were denied a flight home after developing symptoms.
The Abels are now in a Japanese hospital and have been diagnosed with pneumonia.
The new patients – a group of 30 Britons and two Irish citizens – arrived at Boscombe Down military base in Wiltshire on Saturday. The Department of Health said a “full infectious
‘What is concerning is the lack of clear contact with such an [infected] individual in initiating clusters’
disease risk assessment” was done before Saturday’s repatriation flight and that no one who boarded the plane had displayed any symptoms of the virus.
Meanwhile, 118 people were released from a quarantine centre at Kents Hill Park in Milton Keynes, where they had spent 14 days since arriving from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
In China, president Xi Jinping made a highly unusual admission by conceding “obvious shortcomings” in his regime’s handling of the crisis.
Last night, the global total of confirmed cases stood at over 78,000, with more than 2,400 deaths. The growing spread of the virus has sparked concern that it is being contracted from carriers with few or no symptoms.
Dr Nathalie Macdermott, an infectious diseases expert at King’s College London, said: “There has been the expectation that some countries might develop person to person transmission … following an imported case of infection from an affected country.
“What is concerning is the lack of clear contact with such an individual in initiating clusters.”
It suggested there had “potentially been transmission from an asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic individual”, which would increase the risk of significant transmission occurring before the first cases were identified.