Leafy stockbroker town gripped by panic
A STOCKBROKER-belt town in Surrey was gripped by panic over the virus last night.
A man in affluent Haslemere tested positive for the bug – becoming the first person to catch the deadly illness in the UK.
He is now in an isolation unit in hospital as health officials urgently try to trace anyone he recently had contact with.
The man had been to Haslemere Health Centre where it is feared he infected a GP, who himself was taken to a specialist centre on Friday after displaying symptoms. There is concern in the town that the doctor may have passed the virus on to other patients who visited his surgery. The doctor’s wife is also a GP, although it is not known if she has contracted the bug.
The infected man is known to have visited the Prince of Wales pub near Haslemere last Sunday and came into contact with a female member of staff – but she was not told to self-isolate until Friday night. A sign outside the pub yesterday said it was shut until further notice for a ‘full deep clean’. Chris Sturt, 29, a part-time cook at the pub, said: ‘I’m not concerned myself because I didn’t come into contact with the confirmed case. What’s more disconcerting is that there is a GP who’s got it who has been in contact with a lot of people.’
A woman walking her dog nearby complained about the lack of ‘urgency’ and information, adding: ‘I have to figure out what’s happening from my local MP’s Facebook page.’
Ironically, Haslemere – which has a population of 10,000 – was the subject of a 2018 documentary on BBC4 called Contagion! which attempted to demonstrate how a pandemic might unfold.
Producers said it was the ideal place to test how far a deadly virus might spread because it is relatively close to Britain’s two biggest airports and an easy drive to the seaports of Portsmouth and Southampton. It also has a bustling high street and regular rail commuter services to London. Former health secretary and South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt said it was a ‘worrying time’ for the county.