Italy while another had been in contact with an afflicted UK citizen in unrelated instances.
England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said: “Twenty-nine patients were diagnosed who
had recently travelled from recognised countries or from recognised clusters which were under
investigation. Three additional patients contracted the virus in the UK and it is not yet clear whether they
contracted it directly or indirectly from an individual who had recently returned from abroad. This is being
investigated and contact tracing has begun.”
The increase means there have been 80 confirmed cases of coronavirus in England, three each in Scotland
and Northern Ireland, and one in Wales. It comes as:
Officials in Italy, the worst afflicted nation in Europe with 107 deaths, announced they would close
schools and universities until mid-March and prepared to ban public events.
Schools in the UK prepare online learning resources to prevent any similar mass closure from disrupting
students.
Europe’s biggest regional airline, Flybe, collapses. All flights have been cancelled, wrecking the travel
plans of tens of thousands of passengers, and more than 2,300 staff face an uncertain future.
Officials consider closing the Houses of Parliament and having debates conducted digitally as part of
emergency planning.
The government announces it will no longer provide daily updates on where in the UK people have been
infected due to the number of emerging cases.
India bans exports of a number of key drugs, including paracetamol and some antibiotics, panicking
European markets due to the continent’s dependency.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the three new cases transmitted in
the UK were “further evidence that the infection is spreading in the community”.
He added: “However, the latest case numbers do not suggest we are past the stage where the containment
approach is no longer valuable. Even though the increase looks dramatic, it should not alter our strategy at
the moment.”
A total of 16,659 people have been tested for coronavirus in the UK, of which 16,574 were confirmed
negative. The Department for Health said it would no longer be publishing information on the location of
each new case and details would be “released centrally in a consolidated format online, once a week”. The
next update will be tomorrow.
Prof Witty has warned an epidemic in the UK looks “likely” and “extreme” measures could be required to
protect the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions. But he told the BBC the lockdown of
towns and cities, as seen in China’s Wuhan, was “very unlikely” in the UK.
A 27-page government document outlining the potential scale of disruption warned this week that a fifth of
workers in the UK could be off sick at the same time during the peak of the virus. In the worst-case
scenario, up to 80 per cent of the population could be infected. In the event of mass sickness, the document
states, police forces would focus on responding only to serious crimes and maintaining public order,
the NHS would be forced to discharge patients and cancel operations, and the army could also be called in
to support authorities.
Boris Johnson has announced that statutory sick pay will be available to workers staying at home with
possible coronavirus from the first day of illness. Emergency legislation will be introduced to bring
payments forward from the usual four.