Coronavirus a threat to public health: Britain

■ HALFWAY THROUGH a two-week quarantine, 66 more people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, bringing the tally to 136 with only a fraction of the passengers tested, Princess Cruise Lines said Monday.

■ THE EUROPEAN will host an extraordinary meeting of health ministers on Thursday, along with a WHO envoy, to discuss the novel coronavirus outbreak.

■ AMID GROWING pressure to bring back its nationals from coronavirus-hit Hubei province, the Pakistan government has said it is closely monitoring the situation in China and will soon decide on their evacuation.

London, Feb 10: Britain has declared the new coronavirus that emerged from China a “serious and imminent threat to public health” and announced new measures Monday to combat its spread.

The UK Department of Health and Social Care said people with the virus can now be forcibly quarantined and will not be free to leave. It named two British hospitals as isolation facilities for those affected by the disease and designated the Chinese city of Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province where the virus first emerged as a “infected area”.

“The incidence or transmission of novel coronavirus constitutes a serious and imminent threat to public health, and the measures outlined in these regulations are considered as an effective means of delaying or preventing further transmission of the virus,” the agency said in a statement.

It added that the changes were designed to ensure the health and safety of medical workers who came into contact with infected patients. The change comes after a British man who caught the virus at a business conference in Singapore in January appears to be linked to at least seven other confirmed cases in Europe.