Coronavirus alert: We don’t know how many Britons are in Wuhan, government admits
updated
Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor |
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor |
Rosemary Bennett, Education Editor
Tuesday January 28 2020, 12.00pm GMT,
The Times
The government has admitted that it does not how many British citizens are stranded in the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.
As the death toll rose to more than 100, the transport secretary promised that ministers were “working with our partners internationally” to bring Britons home from the locked-down city of Wuhan.
There are thought to be about 200 in the city but Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast: “For anybody who is there, one of the issues we have, working with our partners internationally on this, is actually identifying how many British citizens there are in Wuhan.
“One of the things we’re asking people to do is to contact the consulate there to make them aware. People have started to do that.”
He insisted Britain was “working on arrangements” to bring trapped Britons home.
Chinese authorities said confirmed cases had rose by 60 per cent in a day to 4,515, as Hong Kong cut travel to the mainland to contain an outbreak that has spread to 16 countries.
Britons stuck in Wuhan are hopeful that the British consulate in Beijing will make an announcement on evacuation today and Whitehall sources are optimistic that concrete plans are imminent. The Foreign Office has been trying to negotiate permission from local authorities to extract Britons from the quarantined city.
Mr Shapps added: “If they actually contact the consulate where they are then that consulate is in fact gathering together all the information of the people who are there, in order to help repatriate where that’s appropriate.”
Almost 1,500 people in Britain who have visited the centre of the coronavirus outbreak have been urged to “self-isolate” over fears that the infection can be passed on by people who are not sick.
Health chiefs said that the virus was likely to be in Britain already but officials had managed to contact only one in ten of those now being urged to stay at home and avoid other people.
At the weekend China said there were signs that the new variant could be transmitted before people showed any symptoms. British officials believe that this is unlikely but have adopted an “ultra-cautious” approach.
China said it would extend its new year holidays to stop returning workers spreading the contagion. The government is to postpone the end of the lunar new year holiday from Friday until next Monday, and Shanghai has ordered businesses to close for a fortnight.
Amid criticism of the local government’s handling of the crisis, Li Keqiang, the Chinese prime minister, visited Wuhan, the city where the outbreak began. The official number of those killed rose to 106 today with more than 4,000 confirmed infections across China, a rise of nearly 1,300 cases.
Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan, said that the local authorities’ handling of the virus was “not good enough”, after an admission that five million people left the city before it was put under quarantine last week. Just over half of China’s confirmed cases are in Wuhan, with the rest spread across at least 30 other provinces.
Mr Zhou also offered to resign from his position if it would ease public anger, after admitting that the city had failed to disclose information about the outbreak of the virus in a timely manner.
Seventeen Chinese cities, with a total population exceeding 50 million, have imposed quarantine rules to prevent people leaving freely. The World Health Organisation said that the global risk was “high” as it held crisis talks in Beijing. Germany became the second European country, after France, to confirm a case. Canada also confirmed its first case yesterday, while the US advised its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China.
In Britain, NHS isolation units have been prepared. So far 73 people have been tested but all have come back negative. About 200 Britons still in Wuhan will be tested when they do return and will be asked to remain in isolation for two weeks.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told the Commons: “Coronaviruses do not usually spread if people don’t have symptoms. However, we cannot be 100 per cent certain. From today we are therefore asking anyone in the UK who has returned from Wuhan in the past 14 days to self-isolate. Stay indoors and avoid contact with other people and contact NHS 111.”
Officials said that self-isolation did not require people to cut themselves off from human contact or to remain completely indoors, suggesting that people should behave as if they had a heavy cold.
Mr Hancock insisted that health officials were “using all possible means” to find people recently arrived from Wuhan. “We are collaborating with Border Force, the airlines and others including universities, schools and cultural organisations to try to make contact,” he said.
The virus causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, coughs and breathing problems and Mr Hancock said that if people experienced them after visiting Wuhan they should call 111 or their GP rather than going to A&E or their local surgery.
He added: “While there is an increased likelihood that cases may arise in this country, we are well prepared and well equipped to deal with them.”
Professor Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, said it was premature to conclude that the virus could be passed on by people with no symptoms. However, he added: “In the absence of any treatment or vaccine our main hope of controlling the epidemic is the rapid identification of cases and the immediate prevention of onward transmission through patient isolation and infection control.
“The efficacy of those interventions would be compromised if significant levels of transmission occurred before symptoms appeared.”
UK boarding schools are advising Chinese and Hong Kong pupils to cancel plans to go home for half-term. New guidance from the Boarding Schools’ Association also recommended a period of quarantine for pupils returning from China. British independent schools are extremely popular with Chinese families. More than 8,000 pupils from China attend and a further 5,000 are from Hong Kong.
Q&A: What is being done to stop the virus arriving in Britain?
Passengers on direct flights from China are being asked to declare if they have flu-like symptoms. Doctors will meet them and take them to isolation units for testing.
Is this foolproof?
No. People could arrive while still showing no symptoms. This is why they are focusing on tracking all those who have arrived from Wuhan since January 10. They were told yesterday to “self-isolate”.
What does “self-isolate” mean?
Staying at home and avoiding work, schools, public transport and busy places. Visitors should be avoided but people can still drop off food.
What will happen if a case is confirmed in Britain?
They will be treated in an NHS isolation unit. If they are severely ill, four specialist life support centres have been made ready: Liverpool, Newcastle and at the Royal Free and Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London. Anyone who has been in contact with the patient in the previous two weeks will then be traced to stop them passing it on.
How dangerous is it?
It looks like 2 or 3 per cent of those infected die. This is similar to flu, while Sars killed one in ten and ebola is fatal in more than two thirds of cases.
How bad will things get?
On present trends, the virus will spread around the world without becoming a pandemic. However, scientists believe that it is likely to mutate to spread more easily. If we are lucky, it will become less virulent as it does so, in which case it could become just another cause of the common cold. However, if it retains its potency, a swine-flu style pandemic is a strong possibility. The good news is that becoming more transmissible and more deadly at the same time is highly unlikely.
What can we do to stop it spreading?
Hand washing, covering the mouth when sneezing and throwing used tissues in the bin.
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