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Coronavirus: UK schools and offices could close for up to two months Coronavirus: schools and offices could close for up to two months
(about 1 hour later)
Chief medical officer says onward transmission within the UK is ‘just a matter of time’ Chief medical officer says UK could face ‘quite a long period’ of disruption if hit by pandemic
Schools and offices could be closed for two months with major sporting events and other mass gatherings banned for a similar period if the coronavirus outbreak in the UK intensifies, England’s chief medical officer has warned. Sports events and concerts may have to be cancelled and schools closed for more than two months if the UK is hit by a global pandemic of coronavirus, the chief medical officer has warned.
Prof Chris Whitty said that if Covid-19 did spread in the UK, it would have a heavy “social cost”. Prof Chris Whitty said the country should prepare to face disruption to many normal activities “for quite a long period” and to pay a heavy “social cost” for efforts to thwart the virus.
Addressing health professionals at the Nuffield Trust Summit in Windsor on Thursday, he said: “One of the things that’s really clear with this virus, much more so than flu, is that anything we do we’re going to have to do for quite a long period of time, probably more than two months. The NHS may have to cancel planned operations during the peak of a major outbreak to free up beds and staff for patients with coronavirus, he said, adding that the service would find it “quite tricky” to deal with a huge increase in the number of cases.
“The implications of that are non-trivial, so we need to think that through carefully. This is something we face as really quite a serious problem for society potentially if this goes out of control. It may not, but if it does globally, then we may have to face that.” Whitty’s remarks, which came as the first case in Northern Ireland was confirmed, are the most explicit acknowledgement yet by top officials working to stop the spread of Covid-19 that the small number of cases recorded in the UK – 16 and no deaths so far – could yet escalate dramatically, depending on how the virus progresses internationally.
Whitty said that onward transmission in the UK was “just a matter of time in my view”, adding that the country’s only hope of containing it was if it did not become a global epidemic. “If it is not containable, it will be non-containable everywhere, and then it is coming our way,” he said. If sport is affected, that could pose problems for major events, such as the closing stages of the Premier League season and rugby’s ongoing Six Nations tournament. Ireland’s Six Nations match against Italy that was due to be played in Dublin on Saturday has already been called off because of the recent outbreak of coronavirus in Italy, where there have been more than 650 confirmed cases and 17 deaths.
His remarks came as Public Health England (PHE) said it had sent a health protection specialist to the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife where four former guests tested positive for the virus and 168 Britons are among more than 700 people who have been placed in quarantine. Speaking to an audience of health experts at a Nuffield Trust thinktank conference, Whitty, who is the government’s chief medical adviser, outlined steps that may be taken if the coronavirus becomes a pandemic.
Yvonne Doyle, PHE’s medical director, said the aim of the move, which comes after complaints about inaction by the UK government, was “to better understand the public health measures that have been put in place in the hotel. This includes understanding spread of the virus within the hotel and how the Spanish authorities are monitoring the situation.” “Everybody knows that the kinds of things you consider – reducing mass gatherings, school closures, which may or may not be appropriate for this particular virus. We don’t know yet. We need to find that out.
A spokesman for the regional government in the Canary Islands said on Thursday that 130 guests at the hotel had been cleared to leave and none of those remaining had tested positive so far. It was reported that the 130 allowed to leave were of 11 different nationalities. The Foreign Office was unable to confirm immediately whether any Britons were among those who could soon be flying home. “Now, to be clear, we’re not saying we will do them, but we have to look at all of them and say: how likely are they to work? And what’s our evidence base here? What’s the social cost of this?
Two further patients in England have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of UK cases to 15, the Department of Health said on Thursday. The virus was passed on in Italy and Tenerife, and the patients have been transferred to specialists at the Royal Liverpool hospital and the Royal Free hospital, London. “Because one of the things, frankly, with this virus much more so than flu, is whatever we do we’re going to have to do for quite a long period of time, probably more than two months. And the implications of that are non-trivial. So we need to think that through.”
Of the 13 people in the UK who had previously tested positive for Covid-19, eight have been discharged from hospital. Four of those who remain in hospital are Britons who caught the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan and were flown back to the UK on Saturday. Another 168 Britons have been told to isolate themselves at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace in Tenerife. He added: “This is something we face as really quite a serious problem for society potentially if this goes out of control. It may not, but if it does globally, then we may have to face that.”
One of the cases, who caught the virus in Tenerife, is believed to be a parent from Burbage primary school in Buxton, Derbyshire, which says it has had a confirmed case. Parents were told the 350-pupil school would be closed on Thursday due to a “confirmed case of coronavirus amongst our parent population”. Ministers are finalising the government’s plan to respond to the increasing threat posed by coronavirus, which is expected to be published next week. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, insisted: “There is a good chance that we can avoid a pandemic. That’s a potential outcome but not a definite outcome.”
The message said the closure was a “precautionary measure and to enable a deep clean to be completed”. Buxton Medical Practice also shut its doors, saying it had a confirmed case. Hancock sought to reassure the public that the NHS would be able to cope with a sudden surge in cases by stressing that it had well laid plans based on a detailed document drawn up in 2011, which sets out measures that would be implemented in a flu pandemic.
Responding to the new cases, Prof Rowland Kao, professor of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, said: “We already have evidence of onward transmission occurring outside China and so these two cases [associated with situations with high levels of infection] are not surprising. He also rebuffed a suggestion that Boris Johnson should become more visible in order to reassure the public about coronavirus. Hancock, who chairs a weekly meeting of the Cobra committee from several government departments, said that a regular “drumbeat of Cobra meetings and meetings with the prime minister and meetings of the cabinet” showed the political priority that the virus was getting.
“This occurrence should therefore already be well within the scope of the current approach to control. It does highlight that we should continue to expect more cases without direct association with China, and therefore [despite evidence of the epidemic tailing off in China] a need for continued vigilance with appropriate control measures for some time.” Britain will inevitably record more cases than the 16 identified so far, Whitty said. He said that onward transmission in the UK was “just a matter of time in my view. If it is something which is containable, the UK can contain it. If it is not containable, it will be non-containable everywhere and then it is coming our way.”
On Thursday, the Department for Education (DfE) updated its advice to schools after headteachers complained that the messages they were receiving were inconsistent. The strategy to minimise the virus’s impact is based on four tactics: containing its spread, delaying onward transmission, researching its makeup and possible treatments, and mitigating its effect on the NHS.
The DfE said schools should not send pupils home unless they have had contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19 and that pupils and staff should be asked to self-isolate only if they have travelled to a category 1 specified country or area in the past 14 days. The hope is to contain the virus for as long as possible and try to delay the peak of any major outbreak until the early summer, when warmer weather is expected to result in a drop in the number of cases, as with influenza.
Ministers have announced a mass public information campaign giving advice on how to react to suspected cases and guard against infection amid official fears that it could take just 72 hours for an outbreak the size of Italy’s to take hold. However, Whitty said thousands of non-urgent operations would be delayed if the NHS had to concentrate its resources on dealing with the virus.
While the virus presented “some challenges”, the world was not facing a threat as deadly as the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, Whitty added. That is thought to have claimed 50 million lives worldwide.
“Occasionally things come along which, no matter how good your strategic aim is, will knock you off course for a while. We are not heading into a H1N1 1918 flu pandemic situation, but the coronavirus does present some challenges for us. It definitely will for a period. How big remains to be seen,” he said.
His remarks came as Public Health England (PHE) said it had sent a health protection specialist to the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife, where four former guests tested positive for the virus and 168 Britons were among more than 700 people placed in quarantine. According to reports, 50 of the Britons quarantined at the hotel were allowed to leave on Thursday.
PHE is due to launch a major public information campaign next week to educate people about how to minimise the risks of contracting or spreading the virus. Whitty stressed that regular handwashing remained the single best way of reducing risk.
Experts in infectious diseases said that the two new cases identified in the UK early on Thursday were not a cause for concern and that the measures deployed in Britain so far – including isolating confirmed cases and tracing people they have been in touch with – were working.
“There is no due cause for alarm,” said Prof Brendan Wren of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr Tom Wingfield, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, added: “There are likely to be some more cases in the coming weeks but the UK public can be reassured that we have experienced teams in place to manage the isolation and care of people diagnosed with coronavirus and perform robust tracing and screening of their contacts.”