Coronavirus in UK following a similar pattern to Italy, says expert

The coronavirus is progressing in the UK in a similar way to Italy, an expert has said.

Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology and director of the University College London Genetics Institute, said: “the trajectory of the epidemic in the UK is so far roughly comparable to the one in northern Italy, but with the epidemic in northern Italy two to three weeks ahead of the situation in the UK.”

He continued: “It is possible that a lockdown strategy similar to the one imposed in northern Italy may be adopted by the UK and other countries at some point in the future.”

It was announced on Monday that the coronavirus death toll in Italy has risen to 463 from 366 as a quarter of the country remains under quarantine.

Mr Balloux added that the quarantine of 16 million people in northern Italy will help delay the spread of coronavirus but is “not sustainable in the long term.”

He said that the emergency measure adopted by Italy “comes at a great cost to individuals, communities and the economy”.

The UK has more than 300 confirmed coronavirus cases. Five people have died. Italy has more than 2,000 Covid-19 diagnoses and 366 people have died from the virus.  

There have been more than 100,000 cases worldwide.