Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FOUR BRITS FLOWN TO U.K. HAVE VIRUS
They were among 32 ship passengers sent home from Japan
FOUR passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for coronavirus after being flown home to Britain. It brings the total number of Covid-19 cases in the UK to 13.
The latest four were among the 32 British and Irish evacuees who arrived from Japan on Saturday. They were diagnosed at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside, where all were sent to start 14 days’ quarantine.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said: “The virus was passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the [ four] patients are being transferred from Arrowe Park to specialist NHS infection centres.”
The Department of Health said no one who boarded the repatriation flight had displayed any symptoms of the virus. A third passenger from the quarantined cruise ship in Japan has now died.
The man, who was in his 80s, died of pneumonia after being taken to hospital from the vessel where over 630 people have tested positive. Officials in Japan did not disclose if he had coronavirus.
Fears are growing for David and Sally Abel, of Northamptonshire, who were diagnosed with the virus on the ship.
The couple contracted pneumonia and are now in isolation in a Japanese hospital. Their son Stephen said his 74-year-old dad’s condition is “very serious”. Over 100 Brits repatriated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of Covid-19, were yesterday released from two weeks’ quarantine at a conference centre in Milton Keynes, Bucks, after testing negative for the virus.
The NHS is piloting a “drive through” testing scheme to stop the spread. Some with symptoms will be told to drive to designated car parks to be swabbed.
The number of global Covid-19 cases was last night at around 79,000 with the death toll at almost 2,500.
A woman was punched unconscious by a man in a coronavirus rage attack. Trainee lawyer Meera Solanki, 29, of Solihull, West Mids, was assaulted in Hockley, Birmingham, after protecting her Chinese friend, from London, who was racially abused by the yob and told “take your f***ing coronavirus back home”.