Over 60s told: Avoid crowds
As virus panic spreads, health bosses warn millions of people to stay away from public transport and shops
EVERYONE aged over 60 is being advised to avoid crowded areas including trains, buses and even supermarkets to prevent catching coronavirus.
The drastic warning was issued by the World Health Organisation, which also urged people in this age group to skip routine appointments at GP surgeries and in hospitals.
While infection is far more likely to cause severe illness in the elderly, the advice also applies to people of all ages who have serious health conditions.
WHO’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told his 500,000 Twitter followers yesterday: ‘If you are 60+, or have an underlying condition like cardiovascular disease, a respiratory condition or diabetes, you have a higher risk of developing severe #COVID19. Try to avoid crowded areas, or places where you might interact with people who are sick.’
The warning came as three new coronavirus cases were confirmed in the UK, taking the tally to 23, and the first case was also reported in Ireland.
In other developments yesterday:
Italy’s death toll leapt to 29, with 1,128 people infected;
France banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people – and also banished the traditional greeting of kisses on the cheek;
The US reported its first fatality – a man in his 50s – amid signs of person-to-person spread;
Officials warned countries may have to introduce China-style mass lockdowns of whole towns;
Cases in South Korea rocketed by 813 in a day to 3,150, while Iran said its death toll had reached 43 – although sources said the true number was 210;
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Tehran, claimed she had contracted coronavirus, saying she felt ‘very bad’ – although authorities refused to confirm her condition.
Evidence from China shows that 15 per cent of those aged over 80 known to have contracted coronavirus have died. By contrast, the average death rate among all cases is around two per cent. WHO spokesman Dr Margaret Harris said that older people needed to consider changing their day-to-day routines because ‘avoiding catching this virus is the best outcome’.
She advised them to stay off Tubes, trains and buses, and avoid football matches and other sports events because of close proximity to those who might be harbouring the virus. People should even think twice about going to busy shops and supermarkets. ‘Rather than going to the shops to get things, think about everything you can order remotely,’ she urged.
While the advice might appear draconian, Dr Harris said droplets containing coronavirus could travel as far as 10ft from a cough or sneeze – so ideally people should keep that distance from others. Instead of going to their GP for routine matters such as non-urgent appointments, blood test results and repeat prescriptions, she said they should use the phone or have a video consultation instead.
‘If you can do a remote consultation, that’s brilliant,’ she added, as surgeries and hospitals were more likely than other places to be visited by those sick with the virus.
However, Dr Susan Hopkins, of the NHS, said WHO’s advice was
‘Don’t go to the shops, order things remotely’
overly-cautious for the UK. She said: ‘This is sensible advice for these groups in countries that are seeing rapid rises in cases and where the majority are occurring in-country. In the UK, we do not currently have evidence of sustained and widespread transmission within the community – all but one of our cases has travelled overseas.’
She added that experts were considering what the most appropriate actions for the public to take would be if we start to see more cases passed on within the UK.
In the coming days, Ministers will rush in emergency laws to tackle coronavirus, enabling, for example,
lessons to take place outside schools. But WHO is pressing countries to go much further – to quarantine whole areas in the event of large-scale outbreaks just as China and Italy are doing. On Friday, WHO said the cordon around Wuhan and neighbouring areas had ‘effectively prevented further exportation of infected individuals to the rest of the country’.
But it warned: ‘Much of the global community is not yet ready to implement the measures that have been employed to contain Covid-19 in China. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimise transmission chains in humans.’
Microbiologist Professor Mark Fielder, of Kingston University, said he would back the radical measure if ‘community transmission’ of coronavirus really took off here.
He said: ‘It would be one of the things that would be useful. Because if people are carrying a virus… you want to limit them moving around if they become a threat to wider public health.’
But he said there was currently no reason to suggest UK authorities could not keep containing coronavirus by isolating cases.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at Exeter University Medical School, said ‘heavy-handed’ lockdowns should not be used as the economic and social impact was severe. ‘People should be asked to self-isolate,’ he said.
However, the numbers show coronavirus is quickly going global. In the past week, total European cases have shot up from 54 to 1,428. In more than half of the UK’s confirmed cases – 12 of 23 – the patient caught coronavirus in Europe. Of the latest three cases, two contracted the virus in Italy and the third in Asia, said Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. Last night, it was reported that one of those three was a member of staff at an infants’ school in Reading.
Meanwhile, Britons at the quarantined H10 Costa Adeje Hotel in Tenerife who test negative for the virus will be free to return to the UK, holiday operator Tui said.
In France, ministers said meetings of more than 5,000 people would be halted, prompting the cancellation of today’s Paris halfmarathon. In the US, 22 people are fighting the virus.