London cancer medic among new coronavirus victims as top health chief warns major UK outbreak is ‘highly likely’

A cancer medic and a worker at a London school are among the latest UK coronavirus cases, it was confirmed today as health chiefs warned a widespread outbreak was now “highly likely”. 

They stressed it could hit within days and outlined more dramatic steps to fight Covid-19, including urging hundreds of thousands of workers and other people to “stay at home” if they have a cold, cough, sneezing or fever.

As Prime Minister Boris Johnson chaired a coronavirus meeting of Whitehall’s Cobra emergency committee:

• It emerged that a medic at the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, Northwood, Middlesex, is among the confirmed cases of coronavirus announced over the weekend. “All individuals who were in contact with the clinician have been identified and the appropriate measures taken,” said East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.

• Health Secretary Matt Hancock, writing in the Standard, made clear that he was ready to order infected patients to be detained if necessary to stop the spread of the virus. Police officers in protective suits could be deployed to deal with the most difficult cases.
• Health chiefs were braced for another significant rise in cases this week. They were preparing to move from the “containment” phase of their four-pronged battle plan to “delay” when an outbreak can no longer be stopped in the UK, but if it can be pushed back to the summer it is expected to be less harmful.
• Most cases still involve people who have travelled abroad but the source of the infection for a few people who have not been abroad has not been identified, raising suspicious that it may already be spreading here.
• Business executives and other people were stopping hand-shaking, though this is not yet the official advice as it is in France, where there is more widespread infection. 
•  About 25 Britons have left the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel, Tenerife, which was quarantined after several Italian guests came down with the virus, but 150 UK citizens are still there.
• Three of the latest cases are family members of a man from Haslemere, Surrey who tested positive on Friday. He had no recent travel history and is believed to be the first person to contract Covid-19 within the UK.

• Health officials were also seeking to identify how another new patient, from Essex, caught the virus, having not recently travelled to an infected area.

• Cases in Italy are spiralling, with at least 1,694, including 34 deaths. All local government members in Italy’s Lombardy region, the area worst hit by the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, will undergo tests after a councillor tested positive for the illness
• South Korea reported 599 new cases, taking its national tally to 4,335, including 26 deaths. Lee Man-hee, founder of the church at the centre of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, apologised after one of its members tested positive and infected many others, calling the epidemic a “great calamity”.
• Sixty-six people have died and 1,501 people have been infected by coronavirus in Iran, deputy health minister Alireza Raisi said, though health experts believe this is a huge underestimate.
• The FTSE 100 was up about one per cent this morning, having seen the value of UK blue chip shares plummet by some £200 billion last week. 

As the infection spread in more and more countries, Paul Cosford, emeritus medical director of Public Health England, told BBC Breakfast: “The increase in numbers of people that we have seen affected both in this country and in other countries, in Europe and South East Asia, do I think make it likely now that we will see in due course widespread transmission in the UK? It is now highly likely.”

He added: “It could happen in the next few days or it could take a little longer.”

He stressed on Sky News that everyone had a part to play to slow the spread of the infection, including hand washing, plus coughing and sneezing into a tissue and then binning it, and then washing your hands.

“If you have a cough or a cold or respiratory symptoms, stay at home, don’t go to places where you can spread it to others,” he added.

Professor Cosford also emphasised that for the vast majority of people the infection was mild and they would make a full recovery.

He warned that there would become a point “where we reduce social contact if we see more widespread transmission” but the aim was for people to still be able to go to work and school.

Asked whether it was OK still to offer handshakes, he said he thought so before adding: “Perhaps, I should not, I’m not quite sure.”

With 36 cases already in the UK, Mr Hancock said the global situation may make it impossible to contain the infection here.

He told the Standard: “At this point widespread transmission may become inevitable so delay is about slowing the spread, lowering the peak impact and pushing it away from the winter season when the NHS is under maximum pressure.”

Listen to today’s episode of The Leader podcast: