Coronavirus: Government 'looking at' isolating whole households amid COVID-19 outbreak
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, describes to Sky News what further action might be taken.
Friday 6 March 2020 14:15, UK
The government is "looking at" the isolation of whole households during the coronavirus outbreak, its chief scientific adviser has told Sky News.
Sir Patrick Vallance said the "more extreme" action was being modelled by the government as it considers options to deal with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Latest figures show there have been 116 cases of COVID-19 in the UK, which has more than doubled in the last 48 hours.
This is out of nearly 18,000 people tested.
One woman in her 70s with underlying health conditions has died after catching coronavirus.
Sir Patrick, who is helping to coordinate the UK's response to the virus as the government's chief scientific adviser, offered his "sincere condolences" to the woman's relatives and friends.
He confirmed the government is preparing to move to the "delay" stage of its four-phase approach to coronavirus, which involves attempting to suppress the peak of a mass outbreak in the UK.
On Thursday night, the government updated travel advice for those who have returned from Italy within the last two weeks.
Those who have come back from the country and develop symptoms, however mild, should self-isolate and call the NHS on 111.
And those who have returned from specific lockdown areas in Italy should self-isolate and call 111 even if they don't have symptoms.
Sir Patrick described self-isolation as "really critical" and "a very key part of what can be done".
Describing what further action might be taken by the government, Sir Patrick told Sky News: "There are then more extreme versions when you think about households isolating as well.
"Self-isolation is possibly usually within houses, it means that you stay in your room, you get things delivered to it and stay there for 14 days.
"Household isolation would mean the household - that's obviously an more extreme move.
"Again, we're modelling that we're looking at that in terms of what the options might be."
But Sir Patrick stressed it is "important these measures aren't taken too early".
"It's difficult, if you go too early you ask people to do things which aren't effective for too long, by which time it becomes difficult to get the right motivation to do it," he said.
"If you do it too late, then obviously you've missed the chance to make the big difference.
"So the timing of this is really, really important."
In other developments:
- Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the government is not considering stopping flights into the UK
- More than 140 Britons are stranded on a cruise ship off California's coast
- One of the first Britons to suffer from coronavirus tells Sky News how he went from "a bit sniffly" to being unable to breathe
- Religious groups issue guidance on hand-shaking, sharing hymn books and taking communion wine
- The Vatican confirms its first case of coronavirus in Vatican City
- Germany reports 134 new coronavirus cases in less than 24 hours
- Cameroon and Serbia confirm their first cases of the disease
- Indian carmaker Tata Motors issues a profit warning at its British luxury car brand Jaguar Land Rover due to sales in China taking a hit over coronavirus
- South Korea reports 309 new cases, taking the country's total to nearly 6,600
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declares a state of emergency over coronavirus
- Shops in Australia are rationing toilet roll, while armed robbers carried out a heist of a delivery in Hong Kong
- There are more than 98,690 confirmed and suspected cases globally, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the outbreak. It says there have been more than 3,380 deaths
The government's planning for a worst-case scenario suggests 80% of the UK population will be infected with coronavirus, with a death rate of around 1%.
However, Sir Patrick said he expected it "to be less than that".
He highlighted how Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province where the global coronavirus outbreak began, had an infection rate of less than 80% and a death rate of less than 1%.
Sir Patrick described coronavirus as "very infectious" and "more dangerous than flu", but added it was a "million miles" from diseases such as ebola.
"For 98-99% of people, this is going to be a mild illness," he said
"For a smaller number this can turn into a serious pneumonia. And for a smaller number again this can lead to death, particularly in the elderly and those who have got other co-existing medical problems."
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Sir Patrick said a coronavirus outbreak in the UK was likely to take 12 weeks to reach a peak and maybe "another 12 weeks to go away again".
He reiterated that the best thing for people to do is to wash their hands more regularly and to self-isolate if they had recently travelled to affected areas.
Virus Outbreak: Global Emergency - Watch a special Sky News programme on coronavirus at 6pm weekdays