UK hospitals take new steps to combat virus

Institutions told to isolate potential cases, set up decontamination teams 

Hospitals and health experts in the United Kingdom are preparing new measures to stop the novel coronavirus from spreading although all but one of the nine patients in the UK who tested positive for the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus have been discharged from hospital.

The Sunday Times reports that public hospitals have been told to prepare to isolate potential cases, and to set up teams responsible for "rapidly decontaminating "areas where patients have been affected, in order to protect other patients and staff.

It has also been reported that "millions" of Britons with flu-like symptoms could be told by authorities to "self-isolate" by staying at home for a fortnight if the UK's number of coronavirus cases rises past 100.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that senior National Health Service managers have been told that the service will stop testing for the strain known as COVID-19 "once around 100 cases have been confirmed" across Britain.

The NHS confirmed on Saturday that eight people who tested positive for the virus had left hospital following two negative tests. Five of those discharged belonged to a ski group that had contact with a person who had COVID 19 disease while on a trip to France.

Businessman Steve Walsh had unwittingly infected 12 Britons who were in France with him on a holiday. Five returned to the UK, six are in France, and one returned to a home in Majorca, Spain.

Walsh contracted the virus in Singapore while at a business conference before going to the French Alps for a ski holiday, then returning to his home in East Sussex, on the south coast of England.

In a statement, a group of five who were treated at the Royal Free Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital in London, said: "All of our group, including the six (later confirmed to be seven) in other countries, have recovered quickly from the virus having required minimal medical treatment during our time in isolation.

"We understand the virus can be dangerous for some, but we also want to share the important facts of our situation to help reassure people."

The NHS received praise from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in The Sunday Telegraph, where he described it as a "center of excellence".

Raab said the UK played its "key role" through training "rapid response teams" and local medics to fight the virus in Asia and Africa, investing 40 million pounds ($52 million) in vaccine and virus research, and donating 5 million pounds to a World Health Organization appeal.

The "emerging crisis" of the outbreak also led Raab to praise "cooperation abroad" as "the answer to tackling coronavirus".

"No single country can overcome, or fully defend against the threat that coronavirus presents," he wrote. "The international community must work together."

His comments came soon after the confirmation in France of the first death from the virus outside Asia. French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said an elderly Chinese tourist had become the first death in Europe, Reuters reported on Saturday.

The patient, from the province of Hubei who had arrived in France on Jan 16, had a lung infection caused by the virus.