Coronavirus: Four more people diagnosed in UK
Four more people in the UK have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to eight.
It comes as the government announced new powers to keep people in quarantine to stop the spread of the virus.
In order to do this the Department of Health has described the coronavirus as a “serious and imminent threat” to public health. The overall risk level to the UK remains “moderate”.
There have been more than 40,000 cases of the virus globally, mostly in China.
The total number of deaths in China is now 908 – but the number of newly-infected people per day has stabilized.
The BBC’s political correspondent Iain Watson said the new measures were announced because a passenger on the first UK flight from Wuhan, who is currently being held in quarantine on the Wirral, “is threatening to abscond”.
“Currently the regulations are not strong enough to stop him leaving before the 14-day period is up so they brought in these new regulations to try and compel him to stay put,” he said.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are strengthening our regulations so we can keep individuals in supported isolation for their own safety and if public health professionals consider they may be at risk of spreading the virus to other members of the public.
“This measure will rightly make it easier for health professionals to help keep people safe across the country.”
On Sunday, around 200 British and foreign nationals arrived on the second and final flight chartered to the UK from Wuhan by the Foreign Office. Evacuees were taken to a Milton Keynes conference centre for 14 days of quarantine.
Meanwhile, a fourth person was diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK on Sunday, having caught the virus in France.
Tackling the coronavirus threat has taken the government into uncharted territory. Quarantining hundreds of British citizens for two weeks has never been done on this scale in modern times.
Whitehall sources say the latest Department of Health announcement on the virus threat covers the tightening of some regulations to help enforce quarantine powers.
This gives legal underpinning to the quarantining of people back from Wuhan in Milton Keynes and the Wirral.
They all signed contracts committing to the 14-day isolation but it’s understood that more rigorous regulations are needed to ensure people stay the course.
This is not a ramping up in official warnings to the wider public. The language used in the official release describing an “imminent threat” was over dramatic and confusing and probably there only for obscure legal reasons.
The actual threat level announced by Public Health England a couple of weeks ago remains moderate.
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