A Cabinet minister is currently in self-isolation and awaiting the results of a coronavirus test as five other MPs quarantined themselves following Nadine Dorries’ startling diagnosis.
According to The Daily Telegraph, The minister withdrew from their regular duties after coming into contact with 62-year-old Ms Dorries. The newspaper agreed not to name the Cabinet member.
The shock announcement confirms that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose Government has come under fire amid claims of dithering and inactivity, is at risk of contracting the life-threatening coronavirus.
Ms Dorries’ diagnosis caused chaos in Parliament today as the race began to trace anyone that came into contact with her over the fortnight during which she may have carried the infection.
The 62-year-old Tory MP, who began feeling ill on Friday, is in self-isolation for the next two weeks at home in Gloucestershire, while two of her offices shut and one of her officer workers came down with the bug.
Ms Dorries, who tested positive yesterday after first experiencing symptoms of the virus over the weekend, attended a string of events around Westminster the past fortnight, coming close to hundreds of people, including fellow MPs and office workers, as well as members of the public.
The hunt continues as the World Health Organization this afternoon designated the outbreak a pandemic after the number of patients struck down by the infection across the world surpassed 112,000 and the death toll neared 4,500. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK has reached 460, after the biggest rise in a day.
Ms Dorries was at a No 10 Downing Street event celebrating International Women’s Day attended by Boris Johnson, his partner Carrie Symonds, ministers including Liz Truss and VIPs such as Olympian Kelly Holmes last Thursday.
Earlier in that day she held a meeting with Labour’s Rachael Maskell, who is now in self-isolation for a fortnight after speaking to the NHS’ 111 service.
The MP for Mid-Bedfordshire also held a surgery attended by 12 people in her constituency and went for a lunch at the Jolly Coopers pub in Wardhedges, near Flitton, Bedfordshire, with a local Tory party chief hours before she fell ill on Friday.
MailOnline has pieced together Ms Dorries’ movements in the 14 days period before she fell ill – and the events that have followed her diagnosis yesterday, which saw her office sealed and a member of her staff also ill
This map details some of Ms Dorries’ movements outside of London in the week before she fell ill with coronavirus on Friday
The pub issued a statement on Facebook today saying they are remaining open. It said: ‘We have consulted with Public Health England and are closely following their advice. As a result, we remain open as usual and are continuing to follow a rigorous and regular cleaning schedule at our pub.
‘The health and safety of our customers and colleagues is of the upmost importance to us. We have a strict cleaning process in place to ensure our pub remains clean and sanitised at all times, but this has been even more rigorous over the last few weeks.
‘We sanitise all tables after use, regularly wipe door handles and conduct a deep clean of the entire venue on a daily basis. We are continuing to closely follow the advice from Public Health England and remain open for business.
Her parliamentary office in the Norman Shaw North building close to Whitehall and her ministerial office in the Palace of Westminster are both sealed off today after Ms Dorries and a member of her staff but were taken ill.
Ms Dorries’ symptoms began on March 6, however, the 14-day incubation period means she could have been first exposed to coronavirus on February 21.
The MP for Mid-Bedfordshire also held a surgery attended by 12 people in her constituency and went for a lunch at the Jolly Coopers pub in Wardhedges, near Flitton, Bedfordshire
This is Nadine Dorries’ office in Westminster today in a photo taken by the Guido Fawkes blog as it emerged the Health minister has tested positive for coronavirus and one of her staff has also ‘gone down’ with it
There is now a mad scramble in Westminster to trace her movements and find who she met or came close to since late February – but Ms Dorries has admitted she is struggling to remember herself.
She is a regular in the Commons tea room, library and is a known user of the Portcullis House canteen used by all staff based at Parliament.
The Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire sent a message to the Tory MP WhatsApp group this morning asking them to come forward if they were near her in Parliament because it is ‘hard to remember everyone’. She told colleagues: ‘My staff member has gone down with it too. I haven’t yet given a list to the contact tracers. If you sat next to me in the tea room or library etc please let me know’.
Senior Government ministers could be tested for coronavirus and she was with the Prime Minister at a Downing Street reception to mark International Women’s Day last Thursday, which was also attended by Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at 10 Downing Street in London last Thursday, in an event attended by Nadine Dorries, as well as International Trade Secretary Liz Truss (in red next to the podium) and Olympian Kelly Holmes (in a black suit, two places to Ms Truss’s left)
Boris Johnson’s spokesman today said he will not be tested because he is not exhibiting symptoms and did not come into close contact with her that night. But it is not known fellow Department of Health ministers, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock, will be tested. As a junior minister she does not attend cabinet or Cobra meetings.
Ms Dorries appeared at the despatch box in the Commons last Wednesday but while the Commons is cleaned every day it has not had a deep clean ahead of today’s budget.
The chamber was quite full for Rishi Sunak’s speech – but there were a few gaps on one of the biggest days in the British political calendar.
Today it emerged that Parliament could could sit with skeleton staff and just 100 MPs in the Commons to avoid spreading coronavirus if the crisis gets worse – but a UK parliament spokesman said this morning ‘there are no plans to suspend Parliament’. Westminster staff were busy installing 300-plus hand sanitizer dispensers this afternoon.
March 4: Nadine was last on the floor of the Commons last Wednesday and is likely to have been carrying coronavirus then and didn’t know it
Ms Dorries (circled) was surrounded by MPs a week ago today – but while MailOnline understands the Commons is cleaned daily it has not had a so-called deep clean
There are growing calls for the PM to be tested after he was with Ms Dorries (pictured together last year) in No 10 for an International Women’s Day event also attended by Carrie Symonds
Ms Dorries has messaged Tory MPs (her WhatsApp is pictured) urging them to come forward if they believe they bumped into her or sat near her at Parliament
Labour’s Rachael Maskell revealed she has called 111 and was advised to self-isolate after a meeting with Ms Dorries, whose title is Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health
Nadine Dorries started feeling ill on Friday as she was signing a statutory instrument that declared coronavirus to be a ‘notifiable disease’, enabling companies to obtain insurance cover.
A Tory MP told MailOnline today: ‘I was sat in the tea rooms with Nadine on Wednesday. You think, if she puts her hands on the table and then I put my hands on the table.
‘Then she was in Parliament giving a speech at the despatch box. Everyone needs to be tested, Boris needs to be tested. Jo Churchill was next to her in the chamber.’
The backbencher added: ‘Boris cannot help himself. He shakes hands with everyone. He is obviously trying to stop himself now.’
Her positive test result will increase calls for parts of Parliament to shut to be sanitised.
On Wednesday evening, Ms Dorries took to Twitter to thank Public Health England for their efforts to trace people she might have passed the bug to.
She wrote: ‘@PHE-uk contact tracers have been amazing today.
‘The community testing nurses who are right on the front line, hero’s. So kind with mum. Just for clarity, on Thursday I felt weak and tired but didn’t start with the first symptoms (cough) until 10.45am Friday morning”.
Former Cabinet minister David Gauke said he would be a ‘little bit nervous’ about being in the chamber for the Budget statement if he was still an MP, as it was ‘packed’.
‘It is an environment where I fear the worst in terms of passing on the Covid-19,’ he told Sky News.
Labour MP Rachael Maskell has been advised to self-isolate after meeting Nadine Dorries – who has tested positive for coronavirus – last week.
Ms Maskell tweeted: ‘NHS111 have advised that I self-isolate as a result of a meeting I had with the Government’s Mental Health Minister last Thursday who has subsequently tested positive for Coronovirus.
‘Thankfully I am asymptomatic. It is so important that we all follow all public health advice.’
Ms Maskell said that only her, Ms Dorries and members of the minister’s staff were present at the meeting on Thursday.
The York Central MP said being told to self-isolate was ‘frustrating’ but stressed the importance of following medical advice.
‘I’m absolutely fine, obviously it’s frustrating because there are things I want to get on with.
‘I’m just planning on making more phone calls, more working online. I’m not going to be bored, put it that way.’
The Under-Secretary of State for Health, holds the portfolio for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health.
On Friday, the day she first felt ill, Nadine Dorries spent around two and a half hours holding a surgery at her constituency at Flitwick hall, near Milton Keynes, MailOnline can reveal.
She saw 12 members of the public and dealt with 6 different cases.
Steve Dixon, from the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association, said he then had lunch with her – just the two of them – at a rural pub nearby before she headed home to Worcestershire.
Mr Dixon said it wasn’t until she got home that she started feeling ill.
Having spent several hours with Ms Dorries while she was carrying the virus he has now chosen to self-isolate on discovering she has covid 19.
The constituency surgery was held last Friday at a rented room at the Flitwick Club in Flitwick. There were about 12 people there and Nadine must have helped with about five or six cases over 2.5 hours.
‘Afterwards I joined her for lunch at a pub a neighbouring village.
‘As a result I’ve decided to self isolate since this morning. I’ve contacted NHS England and they are going to call me back to advise on what to do next.
‘I don’t know how much of a risk there is that I’ve been infected too but I’m remaining at home for the foreseeable.
‘I’ve contacted the chairman of the Flitwick club and he said that they are in the process of deep cleaning the room the surgery was held in.’
Tests confirmed last night that the 62-year-old had the virus and she is now in isolation and said to be recovering.
But the MP has now voiced fears for her 84-year-old mother, who is living at her home and ‘began coughing’ yesterday.
As a former nurse, Mrs Dorries has played a key role in drawing up plans to tackle the virus.
She met hundreds of people last week, including a large number of MPs, and attended a conference outside Westminster.
On Thursday she attended a Downing Street event hosted by Mr Johnson to mark International Women’s Day.
Nadine Dorries was with Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel at Downing Street on January 8, before she contracted the illness
The MP is pictured here with her 84-year-old mother, in 2018, who she admitted she was worried about after she came down with a cough
Nadine Dorries tweeted this message on Wednesday evening, thanking the Public Health England staff who are trying to trace anyone she might have infected with the bug
Steve Scott president of the Flitwick Club said: ‘Nadine turned up at 10:45 and left about 1215. I think I saw about nine people who were present at the constituency surgery.
‘Ironically I think this is the first time I have seen her here at the club. And the Conservatives haven’t used it for a number of years.
‘We have since deep cleaned the room the surgery was held in and closed it off to the public. I myself was in the function room on the other side of the building at the time the surgery was held so I don’t really feel as though I need to self isolate at the moment.’
Joe Irwin, a part-time administrator of the Mid-Bedfordshire Conservative Association, had coffee with Mr Dixon on Friday and is now self-isolating as well, as a precaution.
The local association is writing to everyone who met Ms Dorries on Friday to tell them the MP was carrying the virus.
Speaking from his home in Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire, today. Mr Irwin said: ‘We are taking it cautiously. We are following government advice and I am doing what I can [at home]. I am going to speak to the association chairman today.”
Asked what advice the party was giving to the constituents who met Ms Dorries on Saturday, Mr Irwin, who was dressed in a T-shirt and jogging bottoms, said: ‘We are dealing with that. We will be writing to those people.’
Mr Irwin said his father Alan, his grandfather – also called Joe – and his grandmother are all self-isolating.
He lives with his father, who took Joe Irwin senior for an unrelated hospital appointment on Tuesday.
Joe senior, who lives around the corner, said: ‘My grandson had a meeting with her right-hand man. We hope we have not got it, but we are self-isolating.’
One neighbour of Ms Dorries said: ‘That’s awful news. I really hope she gets better soon’. Another 72-year-old villager said: ‘I have only seen Nadine Dorries once before and that was at church. I’ve not met her and now really doesn’t seem to be the time. Good god, I wouldn’t want to see her in church on Sunday.
‘It is such an unknown quantity and I think that is what worries people. We don’t know how to deal with it.
‘I hope she carries on self isolating and gets better. She should certainly be staying in her house.
‘It is bad news. Obviously the markets have gone down but gold has gone up so I am going to get my broker to buy a bit of that.’
Peter Davis, 58, who was on a walk through Dumbleton and the surrounding villages, added: ‘I’ll give her house a wide berth. My only worry would be for her mother’.
Her shock diagnosis came as:
- The deputy chief medical officer warned the start of the peak of the epidemic could be within a fortnight;
- Heath officials announced 61 more patients in Britain have caught the killer infection, taking the total number of cases to 382 and fatalities to six
- Italy’s death toll rose by 168 to 631 and its 60million citizens went into lockdown;
- Thousands of Britons were effectively stranded in Italy after BA cancelled all flights and other airlines followed suit;
- A row erupted over the screening of passengers arriving on the few remaining flights from Italy as some countries closed their borders to Italian arrivals;
- Tonight’s Premier League match between Manchester City and Arsenal was postponed after the owner of Olympiacos – whose side played at Arsenal on February 27 – got the virus;
- A big increase in online outpatient appointments for the elderly is being planned to save on trips to hospital;
- The NHS is scaling up virus testing capacity to 10,000 a day;
- Harvard said it would begin moving to online classes, with British universities under pressure to follow suit;
- A top surgeon was struck down after returning from a skiing trip to Italy – but had treated patients in the meantime.
Mrs Dorries, who is a mother of three, said: ‘I can confirm I have tested positive for coronavirus. As soon as I was informed I took all the advised precautions and have been self-isolating at home.
‘Public Health England has started detailed contact tracing and the department and my parliamentary office are closely following their advice.
‘I would like to thank PHE and the wonderful NHS staff who have provided me with advice and support.’
She added on social media: ‘It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84-year-old mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.’
Health minister Nadine Dorries fell ill on Friday and was diagnosed with coronavirus on Tuesday evening
Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Nadine Dorries bricklaying in Bedford last November
Dorries shared this picture of her mother on her 84th birthday at the end of February
In a tweet Nadine Dorries said she was ‘over the worst of it’ following her coronavirus diagnosis
Matt Hancock wished his colleague Mrs Dorries well as she battles to recover from the virus
Matt Hancock, who as Health Secretary is her boss, was last night understood to be fit and well and not showing any symptoms.
He tweeted last night: ‘Really sorry to hear Nadine has tested positive for coronavirus.
‘She has done the right thing by self isolating at home, and both NHS and PHE staff have been brilliant.
‘We all wish her well as she recovers.
‘I understand why people are worried about this disease.
‘We will do all we can to keep people safe, based on the best possible science.’
Mr Hancock’s sentiments were echoed by the shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth, who tweeted: ‘I send my very, very best wishes to @NadineDorries and absolutely endorse (what) @MattHancock is saying.
‘I know this is an extremely worrying time for our constituents.
‘Our NHS & PHE staff are doing us all proud in very challenging circumstances.’
The news will raise fears that Parliament may have to be closed or that restrictions will have to be placed on visitors.
A government source said: ‘As with everything, we are being guided by the science on this.
‘This will be treated like any other standard case.’
MPs lined up to offer their support last night after the news broke.
Mrs Dorries had been part of a team that drew up legislation to tackle coronavirus before she fell ill.
Officials are in the process of identifying all people she has been in contact with since contracting the virus, including MPs.
Any who have displayed similar symptoms will be tested.
Nadine Dorries getting a flu jab last November as part of a campaign to encourage people to remember to get vaccinated
Labour MP Angela Rayner said: ‘Whilst l almost never agree with Nadine Dorries on anything politically, I do wish her a speedy recovery against this wretched coronavirus.’
It was reported last week that plans were being considered to suspend Parliament for five months.
One source said there were potentially ‘650 superspreaders’ in the House of Commons because its MPs divide their time between Westminster and their seats.