UK calls new coronavirus ‘serious and imminent threat’

People wear face masks and protective gloves as they stand between coaches carrying British nationals evacuated from Wuhan in China amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, after they arrived at Kents Hill Park conference centre and hotel in Milton Keynes, north of London on February 9, 2020, where they will be kept in isolation and monitored for 2019-nCoV strain of the virus. – Britain chartered what it said was a “second and final” flight this weekend to evacuate nationals from China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak. The civilian aircraft arrived at Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton in southern England on Sunday. (Photo by ISABEL INFANTES / AFP)

 

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The British government on Monday warned the outbreak of novel coronavirus was a “serious and imminent threat” and announced new measures to protect the public.

Two hospitals have been designated as “isolation” facilities — both are currently housing Britons who have returned from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak.

Anyone with the virus can now be forcibly quarantined and sent into isolation if they are deemed to pose a public health threat.

Britain has four confirmed cases of the virus, including one man who fell ill after going to a conference in Singapore. He was being treated as a specialist infectious diseases unit in London.

Two evacuation flights have returned British nationals from Wuhan and returnees have been taken into quarantine for two weeks.

“The incidence or transmission of novel Coronavirus constitutes a serious and imminent threat to public health,” the health ministry said in a statement.

Health minister Matt Hancock said the new regulations would “ensure that the public are protected as far as possible from the transmission of the virus”.

The SARS-like virus, which first emerged at the end of last year, has killed more than 900 people and spread around the world. Some 40,000 people have been infected in China and 350 elsewhere.

© Agence France-Presse