Prison lockdown after inmate from Thai jail collapses
A BRITISH jail was on coronavirus lockdown last night after a prisoner collapsed in his cell.
The inmate, held at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire, had recently arrived in the UK from Thailand.
The unnamed prisoner has been tested for the virus along with a second inmate, believed to be his cellmate, after falling ill with flu-like symptoms.
Both have been placed in isolation cells while they wait for test results, which are expected back within the next two days.
Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the outbreak of coronavirus ‘would get worse before it gets better’.
He promised hospitals extra money to set up specialist isolation units and claimed the NHS could treat up to 500 infected patients.
There have been eight confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK so far, including five patients who were infected by a single ‘super-spreader’, Steve Walsh, 53, from Hove, East Sussex, who contracted the disease in Singapore.
Mr Walsh passed the virus on to two family doctors as well as three others in Britain and six in France and Spain.
The inmate with suspected coronavirus from Thailand is believed to have been extradited to Britain to HMP Bullingdon last month. Thailand was the first country outside China to declare an outbreak of coronavirus, on January 13, with 33 cases confirmed there since then.
A prison source said: ‘Two men have been tested for the virus and are being held in isolation.
‘The entire wing is currently in lockdown and will be for the next 72 hours or so.
‘That means that prisoners will remain in their cells for the duration and will be fed food on plates pushed through their door hatches.’
Prisoners are allowed to leave jail for court hearings and hospital appointments, so if the two men had been outside the jail in recent weeks, they could have spread the virus beyond the prison walls. Inmates are also allowed visits from family, friends and lawyers, which means that coronavirus could have been passed on and left the jail that way.
In addition, prison staff, official visitors and contractors could potentially have been infected and become carriers of the virus. Several hundred inmates from the wing where the two patients were housed have been barred from going to other areas of the jail for work, education or family visits and staff are also being screened.
‘Prison staff are working with Public Health England,’ the source said. ‘Access to one wing has been restricted.’
Medium-security Bullingdon, near Bicester, holds up to 1,100 Category B and C inmates.
Yesterday Mr Hancock spoke about a ‘belts and braces’ approach in the Commons: ‘We will do everything that is effective to tackle this virus and keep people safe.’