Government’s coronavirus battle plan enters second phase it switches to delaying outbreak

The number of coronavirus cases in Britain is set “only to go up”, the chief medical officer said today as the battle was ramped up to the second stage of trying to delay a major outbreak in the coming weeks.

Health chiefs are switching from stopping Covid-19 from gaining a hold in the UK to trying to push an epidemic peak into the spring or early summer.

Then the NHS will be under less pressure, the warmer weather may stave off the spread of the virus, and a delay will also “buy time” to develop medicines to combat it.

Before the latest daily figures were published, chief medical officer Chris Whitty told the Commons health and social care committee: “I’m expecting the number only to go up.”

Professor Whitty said the “working assumption” was now that the virus was spreading from person to person in the UK on a limited scale because there were a small number of cases with no apparent link to outbreaks abroad.

The Government has a four-pronged strategy against coronavirus: contain, delay, science and research, mitigate.

“We are mainly in the second stage at this point in time,” Professor Whitty told the MPs, explaining there would be a gradual shift between phases.

He also said there had been a communications “fumble” yesterday over a plan to give only a weekly regional breakdown of cases, signalling that these will be published more regularly, possibly 24 hours after the national figure to ensure they are accurate, and a map and dashboard could follow.

But he did not back very localised figures, as are being released in some countries on a street-by-street basis, amid fears that infected patients could be targeted with abuse on social media and stigmatised.

Thirteen out of the 87 cases in the UK so far are understood to be in London.

In his evidence to the MPs, Professor Whitty:

• Told Londoners to wash their hands after going on the Tube and buses because there was a risk of contracting coronavirus from infected hand rails, for example.
• Said advice to elderly people and those with existing health conditions, the most vulnerable groups, to avoid crowded places may be issued as the outbreak spreads.
• Said he doubted that closing schools would have a big impact on stopping the spread, particularly as many infected children abroad have not got milder symptoms which are less likely to be passed on.
• Said that hopes of containing the virus in China and a few controllable outbreaks outside the country had been dashed, and were now “slim to zero”.
• Stressed he had a “reasonably high degree of confidence” that one per cent is at the “upper limit” of the mortality rate for coronavirus, amid fears sparked by the World Health Organisation that it could be at least three times higher.

The potential economic toll of the virus was becoming clearer, with Europe’s largest regional airline Flybe collapsing into administration after its financial woes were worsened by the disease outbreak.

King’s College Hospital in south London confirmed two recent patients had tested positive for Covid-19, with some staff told to self-isolate.

The Department of Health was criticised by experts and the public on Twitter for faling to provide daily updates on the locations of new UK cases.

England’s Six Nations game against Italy on March 14 in Rome has been postponed.

The Government scientific advisory committee was meeting today to give the latest update on measures which could be taken to combat the virus.

“They range from things like stopping public gatherings, sporting gatherings, closing schools and so on. Quite draconian stuff. To more targeted interventions,” Boris Johnson told ITV’s This Morning.

“We will see what the scientists advise. These guys are brilliant they are epidemiologists who understand behavioural psychology of the population…but at the moment what they are telling me is that actually slightly counter-intuitively things like closing schools and stopping big gatherings don’t work as well perhaps as people think in stopping the spread.

“Our advice on school closures remains exactly where it was we don’t think at the moment schools should be closing.” Professor Whitty said headteachers should not close their schools unless there was a confirmed infection of a pupil or teacher.  “Currently we are not encouraging schools to close just because someone has met someone who met someone who had the virus,” he said.

He said a “fundamental decision” would come later in an epidemic stage when ministers would have to decide if the virus’s behaviour warranted the disruption that would be caused by closing schools as a public health measure.

“My own view is that this is less effective than it would be against flu,” he said, explaining that coronavirus did not appear to harm children and may not spread as virulently among them.

There was no evidence so far that children with asthma would be affected differently by coronavirus than from any other respiratory disease, which might bring on an attack.

Asked for his advice to pregnant women, he said: “At this point it is not a major worry, while not excluding the possibility.”