Coronavirus chaos and confusion is gripping almost every part of British life today as schools defied the Government and closed, big businesses shut down and major sporting events faced postponement because of the explosion of cases in Europe.
Travellers to and from Britain are in limbo about whether they should cancel their business or holiday travel for fear of being exposed to the killer virus sweeping the globe.
Fears are intensifying over the spread of the killer virus because 11 people have died in Italy since Friday – while France and Greece reported new fatalities today as the number of cases on the continent approached 400.
The Foreign Office is yet to ban travel to coronavirus-hit countries including China – only flights to hotspots like Wuhan – and there is no curb on travel into the country despite more than 80,000 cases worldwide and 2,700-plus deaths.
With the global coronavirus crisis expected to continue through 2020, millions of Britons with foreign holidays booked over the Easter break in April fear they will be unable to travel if coronavirus continues to spread at an extraordinary rate.
Ireland’s rugby match against Italy on Saturday was postponed today amid fears Italian fans could bring the virus to Dublin – but England’s Six Nations fixture in Rome on March 14 is still going ahead. England’s FA is holding urgent talks today about whether it is safe to host Italy’s football team for a Wembley friendly on March 27.
More than 160 British guests are already trapped in quarantine in a Tenerife hotel for the next two weeks after an Italian doctor staying there fell ill and today Jet2 suspended bookings to the Canary Islands hotel because of the outbreak.
Public Health England today warned that it could shut down towns and cities, schools and public transport systems if the current 13 positive tests in the UK began going up at the same shocking rate seen in Europe.
A China-style shutdown would force tens of millions to stay at home, including essential health workers such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said today: ‘There’s no secret there’s a variety of things you need to look at, you look at things like school closures, you look at things like reducing transport.’
US oil company Chevron has sent home around 300 British staff from his London HQ after a worker came down with flu-like symptoms after a foreign trip.
Other international companies based in the UK also scrambling to find out if any of their staff could be carrying coronavirus with a 350,000 Britons estimated to have travelled to Italy and France alone over half term.
More than 30 UK schools whose students and teachers travelled to Italy on ski trips over half term last week have shut down or sent people home for a fortnight despite Health Secretary Matt Hancock telling headteachers to remain open.
But Mr Hancock told the Commons this afternoon that British workers told to self isolate by a doctor must be allowed to stay at home for a fortnight with paid sick leave – even if they are not showing symptoms. He also said the NHS is looking to extend home testing for coronavirus, while a new public information campaign will be launched where Britain’s 66million inhabitants will be reminded to wash their hands and throw tissues in the bin after use.
Nottinghamshire Police officer has been taken off-duty today and advised to stay at home as a precaution amid Coronavirus fears after he reported feeling unwell while on duty following a recent trip to northern Italy.
A worker cleans the doors of a building in Westferry Circus, next to the office of US oil company Chevron at Canary Wharf, after 300 staff were sent home when a worker who had been abroad began feeling unwell
Travellers to and from Britain are in limbo about whether they should cancel their business or holiday travel for fear of being exposed to the killer virus sweeping the globe.
England football and rugby fans are waiting to hear if fixtures with Italy in Rome and in London are going ahead
Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough is one of more than a dozen school which have been completely closed after students and staff returned from Italian ski trips. The Health Secretary has urged them to stay open but many have ignored him
Britain’s tourism industry also appears to be suffering with the streets of Cambridge deserted today when they would usually be packed with thousands drawn to the city from abroad by its world-famous university and thriving high-tech firms.
As Britain prepares itself for coronavirus cases to grow markedly, it has emerged:
- The number of new coronavirus cases reported outside of China exceeds those in the country for the first time, the World Health Organization says;
- Travel plans for millions of Britons over the coming months are in doubt – 160- UK holidaymakers are in quarantine in Tenerife hotel because Italian medic tested positive;
- Ireland’s Six Nations clash with Italy is called off to prevent virus being carried to Dublin by Italians. England’s football and rugby matches with Italy next month remain on – for now;
- Canary Wharf office of US oil company Chevron is sealed off and 300 workers sent home over coronavirus fears after a single employee reported flu-like symptoms;
- 30 UK schools shut down or quarantine students and teachers who feel ill after Italian ski trips over half term;
- Health secretary Matt Hancock says there will be more home testing for coronavirus to keep patients away from hospital. Anyone told to stay off work by doctors should be paid for two weeks at home, he says;
- The NHS has ‘little fuel in the tank’ to cope with a coronavirus outbreak because of a crippling shortage of beds, health experts have warned;
- Stock markets in Europe continue to fall as virus fears trigger a sell-off, with the UK’s FTSE 100 dropping 0.8% and Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 sunk by as much as 2%;
Authorities in Italy have reported that the number of people infected in the country grew to 322, or up 45 per cent in 24 hours, and 11 people have now died.
Austria, Croatia and Switzerland also reported their first cases linked to the outbreak in Italy, while Spain and France recorded new ones, also involving people who had been to northern Italy.
France recorded its second death, a 60-year-old Frenchman who died in a Paris hospital.
The first positive test in South America has also been recorded in a 61-year-old Brazilian man who had recently been to northern Italy.
For the first time, the number of new cases officially reported outside China has exceeded new cases reported by Beijing, Reuters has reported.
It said figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed there were 427 new cases reported in 37 countries on Tuesday, compared with 411 reported by Beijing.
Uk Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs this afternoon that 7,132 people in the UK have so far been tested. Of these, 13 have tested positive, of whom eight have been discharged from hospital.
He said the NHS is looking to extend home testing while a new public information campaign will be launched.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Hancock suggested that home testing will be rolled out more widely to complement existing hospital testing and the ‘isolation pods’ which have been sited at hospitals in England for people who turn up at A&E with symptoms.
He said: ‘We now have testing sites at all A&E facilities, as far as we know, across England.
‘But we’re also planning to introduce home testing and some of this has started already so that people don’t have to go to the pods in front of A&E which have been put there to ensure that people don’t actually go into A&E where they might infect others.
‘Home testing is the safest place to be tested because then you don’t have to go anywhere, and that will allow us to roll out testing to a much larger number of people as well.’
A number of schools in the UK have told staff and pupils to stay at home after returning from ski trips to northern Italy, where several towns in the Lombardy and Veneto regions remain on lockdown.
At least eight schools have closed despite national guidance urging them to stay open.
But Mr Hancock urged schools not to close unless they had a confirmed case of the virus.
He added: ‘There is no need to close the school or send other students or staff home.’
The Foreign Office in the UK has updated its guidance on travel to Italy, advising against all but essential travel to 10 towns in Lombardy (Codogno, Castiglione d’Adda, Casalpusterlengo, Fombio, Maleo, Somaglia, Bertonico, Terranova dei Passerini, Castelgerundo and San Fiorano) and one in Veneto (Vo’ Euganeo).
Meanwhile, BBC Radio 4 presenter Nick Robinson has said he is in self-isolation at home after returning from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, where cases have been recorded.
Eleven schools are closed and at least 19 have sent pupils and staff home because of coronavirus after trips to the Alps for health and safety reasons
Italy saw a devastating surge in coronavirus cases over the weekend, with confirmed infections rocketing from just six on Friday to more than 322 today, and 11 people have died
Since cases of the COVID-19 illness soared in Italy over the weekend they have spread around Europe, with mainland Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Croatia today all declaring their first infected patients
Worldwide, more than 80,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus and more than 2,700 have died
Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow is also in self-isolation after travelling to Iran, where at least 12 people have died amid an outbreak there.
In London, energy firm Chevron asked about 300 British employees to work temporarily from home after an employee in its Canary Wharf office reported a flu-like illness.
A statement from the firm added: ‘Chevron continues to monitor the situation very closely, utilising the guidance of international and local health authorities.’
China, where the outbreak began, has reported 78,064 cases and 2,715 deaths, while South Korea has the second-highest number of cases with 1,261 and 11 deaths.
More than 30 schools around the country have been caught up in panic and confusion after children returned home from ski trips to Italy.
Hundreds of cases of the virus have been diagnosed in northern Italy since Friday as dozens of school trips made their way home after half-term trips.
Some headteachers have taken evasive action and shut down schools after staff and students came down with ‘mild flu-like symptoms’ after returning from the Alps.
Others have sent home the pupils and staff who went on the trips to Italy, where 11 towns are now in government lockdown.
While many have decided to stay open, telling pupils they must come in unless they have clear symptoms of the killer virus – a move which has angered some parents.
Public Health England is not advising schools to close and Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs today: ‘If anyone has been in contact with a suspected case in a childcare or an educational setting, no special measures are required while test results are awaited.
‘There is no need to close the school or send other students or staff home. Once the results arrive, those who test negative will be advised individually about returning to education.
‘In most cases, closure of the childcare or education setting will be unnecessary, but this will be a local decision based on various factors including professional advice.
‘Our goal here is to try to keep schools open wherever we can so long as that protects the public. In fact, our wider goal is to have the minimum disruption, social and economic and indeed to the NHS subject to keeping the public safe.’
Some schools also reported that they closed immediately for a deep clean following Department of Health and PHE advice.
Contradictory messages from the government have led to widespread confusion and caused individual headteachers to take matters into their own hands.
Around 160 British tourists will be locked in a Tenerife hotel for two weeks after authorities announced a full-scale quarantine today.
Hundreds of guests will be kept inside the H10 Costa Adeje Palace for 14 days after the virus was brought to the resort by an Italian doctor.
The doctor’s wife and two more Italians in his travelling party have also tested positive for the virus, bringing the total of hotel cases to four.
Britons inside the hotel have been handed thermometers and told to take their own temperatures, while some guests lounged by the pool wearing masks today as they settled in for a two-week stay.
Meanwhile, authorities are beginning a hunt for tourists who have already left the hotel and may have come into contact with the infected patients.
According to The Sun, at least one Briton who has returned to the UK after staying at the hotel has since been tested after suffering from symptoms.
Spanish health chiefs are gathering names from the hotel and plan to send the list to their countries of origin including the UK.
Holidaymakers fear their Easter travel plans could be thrown into jeopardy due to the fast-spreading coronavirus.
There has been an explosion of cases across popular European countries for holidays such as Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Croatia while holidaymakers are on lockdown at a hotel in Tenerife due to an outbreak there. Greece has become the latest country to confirm a case and there have been two deaths from the illness in France.
But many aren’t certain whether they can go ahead with their bookings.
The Foreign Office says it’s safe to travel to all of the above countries but advises against all but essential travel to 10 small towns in Lombardy, Italy, and one in Veneto.
However, health bosses triggered confusion yesterday.
When asked in an interview if he would go to northern Italy, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said ‘I’m not planning on going, put it that way’.
However, Public Health England’s Professor Paul Cosford said it would be ‘unreasonable’ to advise people not to travel to Italy.
With Easter five weeks away, holidaymaker Collen Keown, who is due to visit Florence, wrote on Twitter: ‘We have booked Florence for Easter, so we have a dilemma about whether to cancel or not. Currently, there is no government advice against travel there so our insurance would not pay out if we cancel. But affected areas are not that far to the north.’
While another, John Eady said: ‘We’ve got our holiday booked to travel to Venice in two weeks and Italy seems to be riddled with coronavirus. Holiday only cost about £350 for all of us, but the company won’t give us any money back unless the Foreign Office put travel restrictions on.’
And Trev tweeted: ‘Should we be worried about our holiday in Sicily going ahead in June with the coronavirus outbreak in Italy? Will we be given the information needed to keep us safe?’
In Tenerife, Jet2 has stopped selling holidays to the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel, which is currently under quarantine due to an outbreak of the virus.
However, the airline confirmed its flying schedule to the island remains in place and that any customers due to stay at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace would be transferred to alternative accommodation in Tenerife.
Ireland’s Six Nations clash with Italy in Dublin has been called off amid fears over the coronavirus.
The deadly epidemic has swept through northern parts of Italy, and in a bid to prevent the disease reaching their shores, the Irish government have taken the step to postpone the game on March 7.
Both the women’s Six Nations and Under 20s clashes have also been cancelled.
IRFU chief Philip Browne revealed they are working with the Six Nations in an attempt to find a date to reschedule the fixtures, but there are no details on when that may be.
In his statement, Browne said: ‘We had a very positive meeting with [Irish health minister] Mr [Simon] Harris and his advisors where we requested an instruction as to the staging of the Ireland.
England’s Six Nations match in Rome in a fortnight is still scheduled to go ahead.
The FA will today hold urgent talks over the impact of the coronavirus on England’s Wembley friendly with Italy next month.
Senior staff will sit down at the national stadium to talk through the problems associated with the fixture after the outbreak increased in northern Italy.
More than 370 people have been diagnosed with the virus in Italy, with nearly a dozen towns put into quarantine. Twelve people are known to have died.
Health ministers from seven European nations have met in Rome to discuss a coordinated response.
The European Commission, which enforces the rule book for the open-border Schengen Area, encouraged countries to adopt measures based on scientific evidence and ‘in coordination and not in a fragmented way’, a spokeswoman said.
Symptoms include a cough, fever and shortness of breath.
Stock markets continued to plunge today after coronavirus fears in the US caused the worst two-day losing streak on Wall Street in two years.
The FTSE 100 Index in London fell another 0.8 per cent taking the total wiped off UK blue chips to nearly £100 billion since the start of the week.
The FTSE has now fallen below 7,000 for the first time in more than a year while the Dax in Germany and Cac 40 in France fell as much as two per cent.
The declines across Europe come after another dire session on US markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor’s 500 both finishing three per cent lower in the second straight day of sharp declines.
Experts warned there was no sign of a let-up in the shares turmoil as the reality of the virus spread kicks in across equity markets.
Matt Hancock came under fire last night when he admitted he was ‘not planning’ a trip to northern Italy – but the Foreign Office has not changed its travel advice, meaning flights continue to take Britons to the region and anyone who cancels cannot claim the cost back on their insurance.
Official advice was changed on Tuesday to say that people should self-isolate at home if they have travelled home from one of 11 quarantined towns in the Lombardy and Veneto regions, or if they feel ill after visiting north of Pisa.
Cransley School, a private school in Northwich, Cheshire (pictured) announced it will be closed for the rest of the week because of coronavirus fears. It will also undergo a deep clean, in a precautionary move to prevent any cases
Three pupils at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School in Devon (left) tested negative for the virus after being sent home feeling ill after a school trip to Italy, and Cambridge House Grammar School (right) in County Atrim, Northern Ireland, sent home around 50 staff and pupils
Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough has closed for the week after pupils returned from a skiing trip to northern Italy. Initially it had sent 36 pupils home but has now closed completely for a deep clean
But health bosses triggered confusion yesterday about whether it was safe to travel in future. When asked if he would go to northern Italy, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said ‘I’m not planning on going, put it that way’ in an interview.
However, PHE’s Professor Cosford, said it would be ‘unreasonable’ to advise people not to travel to Italy, and the Foreign Office does not warn against any other parts of the country.
It comes after a ‘worst case’ Government report predicted 80 per cent of Britons could catch the virus and 500,000 may die.
Italy is struggling to contain the spread of coronavirus with 11 dead and 322 confirmed sick – and dozens of UK schools have returned from the country’s Alpine ski resorts in the past week.
Authorities in Italy reported on Tuesday night that the number of people infected in the country grew to 322, or 45 per cent in 24 hours, and deaths of patients with the virus rose to 11.
Austria, Croatia and Switzerland reported their first cases, while Spain and France recorded new ones, also involving people who had been to northern Italy.
The first positive test in South America has been recorded after 61-year-old Brazilian man who had recently been to northern Italy tested positive, it has been reported.
Meanwhile, Public Health England announced that flu patients will now be assessed for coronavirus to see if it is spreading – even if they have not visited a hotspot country.
But it has confirmed it is not advising that schools shut in an attempt to stem the spread of coronavirus – unless they have been to one of the specific towns that are identified by the Italian government.
The organisation’s medical director Paul Cosford told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Schools have to take difficult decisions given the complexity of issues that they are facing.
‘What I would say is that our general advice is not to close schools.
‘What we are clear about is if you have been in the area of northern Italy of concern and you have symptoms – it is a cough, shortness of breath or fever – then you do need to self-isolate, you need to phone NHS 111 and await advice for further assessment or testing.
‘Of course if you’ve been to one of the specific towns that are identified by the Italian government and essentially closed down, then our advice and requirement is to self-isolate anyway.’
He said Public Health England was available to talk to schools about their ‘specific circumstances’ and ‘help them make the right decisions for them’.
Mr Hancock said official advice has been changed to say people who have been to anywhere in Italy north of Pisa should self-isolate if they develop flu-like symptoms on their return to the UK.
One primary school in Essex is closed as a precaution today because a teacher was in Italy over half term – even though the worker is not ill.
Eight schools were shut today and three more closed yesterday taking the total to 11 – and at least 19 more have been sending students and teachers into self-isolation if they came down with flu-like symptoms or chesty coughs.
But a school in Swansea is ignoring pleas from parents to shut down after a class returned from a ski trip to Italy with pupils told that they still have to come in unless they have the flu.
Secondary school Cleeve Park, in Sidcup, south-east London also remained open today despite some of its pupils and staff reporting ‘feeling unwell’ after returning from a school ski trip to Bormio, in northern Italy on Saturday.
The school has announced today that it has advised an unspecified number of pupils and staff to isolate themselves at home, but allowed others from the trip attend.
It said it decided not to close after following advice from Public Health England that the school should remain open and all students should attend if they are well.
However, some parents are against the headmaster’s decision.
One father has chosen to keep his son at home until results come back negative.
Headteachers have the final say on when schools close for health and safety reasons such as illnesses or bad weather.
The latest to shut their doors are Lime Academy Watergall in Bretton, Peterborough and Shepeau Stow Primary in Spalding.
Lutton St Nicholas and Gedney Church End primary schools in Lincolnshire also closed ‘because of a potential connection to the Coronavirus by an individual within the school’.
St Christopher’s C of E High School in Accrington told parents it had to shut.
A member of staff at William Martin Junior and Infant School came back from a half-term holiday in Italy so is shut as a precaution today.
Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough and Cransley School in Northwich, Cheshire, shut completely on Tuesday so they can be deep cleaned. The Brine Leas Academy, also in Cheshire, shut its sixth form yesterday.
St Peter’s Church of England Middle School in Windsor closed today for a ‘precautionary clean’ after a pupil returned home from a trip to Italy during half-term.
Archbishop Temple School in Preston closed and said in a notice on its website that it had an ‘unavoidable closure’ because a ski trip had recently returned from Pila, Italy.
And pupils and staff at 18 schools in Cornwall, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Berkshire, Pembrokeshire, Liverpool, London, Birmingham and Northern Ireland were sent home to quarantine themselves.
Professor Paul Cosford, medical director for Public Health England, today admitted the Government does not know how many Brits have come back from skiing trips to the north of Italy but said it was a ‘significant number’.