NEXT, WHOLE FAMILIES WILL BE QUARANTINED
Poorly will be urged to sleep in separate rooms from loved ones... and keep 6ft 6ins away at all times
WHOLE families will need to go into quarantine in the coming weeks if one of them has a temperature or a cough, Boris Johnson said yesterday.
Although the Prime Minister stressed this was not yet the official advice, he warned households that it would be ‘coming down the track’.
But Mr Johnson was clear that anyone who developed a cough or a high temperature should stay at home for a week.
They must stand at least 6ft 6ins from others in their house and sleep in a different ventilated room. They cannot go out for a walk, they should eat their meals alone in their bedroom and if they go in the garden, they should be alone.
Over the next few weeks as the outbreak nears its peak, whole families will be told to stay at home for a week even if just one of them develops a cough or fever. And in another major shift in policy, the public have been urged not to call the NHS 111 helpline if they have symptoms but to instead log on to its coronavirus website.
They were also warned that they would not necessarily be offered a home test as officials want to focus resources on detecting hospital cases.
At a press conference in Downing Street, the PM said he was considering the banning of mass gatherings but not because he believed they risked spreading disease. Mr Johnson has been told that patients are unlikely to spread the virus at football matches for example – but have a much higher chance of passing it on to relatives at home.
The Prime Minister may choose to cancel major events because they have a huge impact on public services – notably ambulances and the police – who may be under-staffed.
Yesterday the number of confirmed cases in the UK rose to 590 – a leap of 134 in a day while the death toll increased to ten.
These are likely to be the tip of the iceberg however and the Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance yesterday suggested that between 5,000 and 10,000 were infected. The latest confirmed deaths involved an 89-year-old who was being treated at Imperial College Hospitals in London and a woman in her sixties who was at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals in Essex.
Outlining the family quarantines, Mr Johnson said: ‘At some point in the next few weeks we are likely to go further and if someone in a household has those symptoms then we will be asking everyone in that house
hold to stay at home. I want to signal now that this is coming down the track.’
But Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty emphasised that anyone who had a new continuous cough or a temperature above 37.8C now should stay at home for one week. A normal bodily temperature is between 36.1C and 37.1C, so this is only just above that healthy threshold. Professor Whitty said: ‘Anyone who has a cough or a temperature should stay at home for seven days.
‘Some people with really quite mild symptoms can spread this virus to a lot of people. People with minor symptoms should stay at home for seven days. It is important that people with minor symptoms do not call 111. However if their symptoms start to deteriorate, we would want them to call 111. We no longer need to identify every case... we will pivot testing capacity to only people in hospitals with symptoms. People who are remaining at home do not need testing.’
Professor Whitty also explained that testing would be offered to patients even if they had not travelled to high-risk countries including Italy, although they would be prioritising those in hospital. He acknowledged that self-isolating would be ‘something which will interfere with their lives and interfere with their work and their social life in quite significant ways’. But he reiterated that it would help ‘protect older and more vulnerable people’ and help delay the peak of the epidemic.
Sir Patrick later predicted that everyone staying at home for a week if they had a cough or a fever would reduce the peak by between 20 to 25 per cent.
Whole families quarantining if just one of them fell sick would bring this down by another 25 per cent, he said.
Despite these measures, several academics have questioned why the Government is not doing more and following other countries by closing schools and banning major events.
Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet medical journal, said that ministers were making a ‘major mistake’. He said: ‘The UK’s response needs to learn lessons from what happened in China and what is now happening in Italy.’
Meanwhile, Dr Simon Ashworth, clinical director for critical care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, stressed: ‘They need to take the advice of senior hospital and medical staff and listen to experts. This means closing schools and universities, stopping mass events, cancelling elective surgery to allow all hospitals to upscale preparations and release staff to train and organise our precautions.’