U.K. Steps Up Quarantine Powers as Virus Outbreak Spreads
U.K. Labels Coronavirus as Serious, Imminent Threat to Public
(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government stepped up measures to contain the new coronavirus, imposing regulations allowing health authorities to keep individuals in quarantine if they’re considered to be at risk of infecting others.
The government called the outbreak a “serious and imminent” threat to public health. Four more patients in England tested positive, bringing the total in the U.K. to eight.
The new rules apply to anyone seeking to leave isolation before a 14-day quarantine is complete and will be in place for future cases, the government said Monday.
“I will do everything in my power to keep people in this country safe,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement.
The U.K. is taking the extra steps as the outbreak grows globally. The coronavirus, which originated in China, has led to almost 41,000 cases and more than 900 deaths, a higher toll than SARS.
As part of the measures, the government designated several hospitals as isolation facilities. Hancock added that the risk to the public remained “moderate.”
A doctor’s office in Brighton, England, has temporarily closed after a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus, the BBC reported. One of the eight people infected in the U.K. is a man who caught the virus at a conference in Singapore and was diagnosed in Brighton. He has also been linked to a cluster of cases that emerged among Britons at a ski chalet in France.
The new cases in the U.K. and France “could be a spark that launches a fire,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva. “But for now it’s only a spark.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Carla Canivete in London at ccanivete@bloomberg.net;James Paton in London at jpaton4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Kesur at skesur@bloomberg.net, Eric Pfanner, Anne Pollak
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