A deep clean at this GP surgery and brighten off the four new cases of novel Corona virus announced today in the UK Two of our health care workers and at least one of them is thought to have been a member of staff at the County Oak Medical Center.

They have been advised to isolate themselves.

Public health officials say they are now working urgently toe identify all patients and other health care workers who have bean in close contact.

And this is all about contact tracing so far along, the recent cases come back to one man.

A U.

K businessman attended a conference in Singapore before going skiing and France and then returning to Brighton.

He tested positive for novel Corona virus and has now associated with 10 cases in France, New Yorker and in the UK The question now is whether this businessman is a super spreader, not an official term, but taken to mean someone who infects more people than normal.

Obviously, some people can transmit the disease.

They may transmit it because they're in close proximity to a lot of people.

It doesn't make them a super spreader and we have to think the opposite that many people have been in contact with.

People had the disease and it's not spread to them.

So I think it is too early to say that there are people spreading at worldwide at the moment.

Yet today, the World Health Organization said the case is in France yesterday in the U.

K.

Today are concerning because these people have not traveled to China.

The detection off this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire, but for no, it's only a spark.

Our objective remains containment.

And today the government announced new restrictions on any individual considered by health professionals to be at risk of spreading the virus.

The regulations apply to any individual seeking to leave supported isolation before the current quarantine period of 14 days is complete.

The P, a news agency, reported that one of the 93 people currently in quarantine here in the Wirral attempted to leave, prompting this tightening of the laws.

On this afternoon, ST Mary's Independent School in South Hampton was closed after some students who traveled to China developed corona virus symptoms.

They have been put in isolation.

Confirmed cases outside China remain low, just 319.

But inside the country, more than 40,000 patients have been confirmed with 909 deaths.

Well, a short time ago, I spoke to Paul Cause Food, who's tthe e emeritus medical director of Public Health England and I began by asking him what plans were being made in case the virus begins spreading further here.

But of course, it's early days Still, in the course of this infection were very clear that at the moment the right thing to do is to identify everybody early and to do all that contact tracing to reduce spread.

That's where our focus is at the moment.

Of course, we've got a whole range of contingency plans in place if something else happens, and if we do get more widespread infection.

But that's not the position that we're in a TTE this stage, right?

But what are the plans for if it gets much bigger?

Wood is a whole range of plans that we have from the country of public health.

England and the N HS itself will have all its plans to surge capacity as necessary.

If we do see Atmore cases in this country on DDE.

If we begin to see people who get unwell as a result of this novel coronavirus that just because you don't have enough isolation beds, do you?

So what will happen?

I mean, you have sort of whole wards or Whole Hospital's.

Thean hs has a whole range of of plans.

By what are they?

Well, there are a number of faces to those plans.

The first phase is to treat people within the existing capabilities that they have.

And then there's a range of faces they will go through if they need to surge that capacity on toe.

Handle more people.

So this is not a serious and imminent threat at the moment.

So the risk to the UK population is moderate.

That's the risk as defined by the UK chief medical officer's.

It's important to distinguish the that from the use of the term serious and imminent threat, which was a legal term that was used in order to pass some regulations today that have been announced to make sure that if people do need to being what recording supported isolation for 14 days, that they can remain in that isolation for the 14 day incubation that we're concerned about.

That's not to say that there's a serious in the imminent threat to widespread infection in the UK The rate of people dying from this is about 2%.

That's much higher than sort of normal flu, which does obviously kill many people every year.

If this does become a widespread infection in Britain, a CZ people acknowledging is possible.

That's an awful lot of of casualties.

Well, there's two things to say to that.

One is that the actual rate of death is still unclear.

You're right that roughly 2% is tthe e current best estimate.

I think many people would say that as we understand the infection Maur as we see how many people have been infected but not identified in China as being infected, that that rate of people who run into the most severe problems and sadly die as a result may well become lower than that.

And that's why all our efforts at the moment or two, identifying anybody who's who's come to the UK and has the infection quickly doing all the contact tracing that we're doing and making sure that we're handing all of those contacts.

Of course, the fact that this week that four cases that we've announced today were all from our list of contacts does suggest that our contact tracing at this stage is is working really rather well when I was professor cause for talking to me earlier.

Joining me now is Dr Nasally McDermott, whose a clinician and lecture in outbreak disease control at King's College London.

Well, there's the man in charge saying we've got plans, but being quite coy about what they are, are you convinced that they are on top of this?

Yeah, I'm convinced that they're on top of this at the moment.

Yes, there's certainly scale up plans within the N HS that can be implemented if needed.

But at the moment, I think, as he was saying, we've got very robust contact tracing methods on that's apparent because we've identified these four cases here in the U.

K.

Today.

There were a further five identified in France over the weekend on waken link, All of them back Thio, the third case in the UK from Thursday last week.

These the sparks that the W.

H.

O.

Is talking about when they talk about, you know, sparks and fires.

We can all come to that image, and it's quite frightening.

It is quite frightening.

But I think that actually, I would interpret the sparks that the W.

H.

O is concerned about Maura's being people that are infected and we don't know how they became infected.

Right now we have sources of infection, and we can follow up their contacts and make sure they are tested and isolated appropriately in Singapore.

At the moment we have a few hand, a handful of cases where we have no idea who their contact waas.

That is more concerning.

I mean here, obviously, because it's so few cases.

It's things like people in Brighton who are worried about coming into contact with people who might have gone to this doctor's surgery, which may be affected.

I mean, what should people be doing should, you know, should they be sending their Children to school wearing my list?

All those sorts of things, what people at home are wondering?

Yes.

Oh, I'm sure that the doctor in who's related to the surgery he knew he had had contact with this individual.

So at the point at which this individual tested positive last Thursday.

He probably then took measures to self isolate at that point because that would have been the advice from Public health England at that time.

Therefore, he probably hasn't had any contact with patients or his colleagues since that point.

So the measures that are being taken now are really just to make sure, absolutely, that the surgery is now clean, that anybody who might have had contact with him is isolated and they want to trace any patients who may have seen him face it.

So people there in Brighton shouldn't don't need to be taking any further precautions that anyone else in the country is taking at the moment.

They don't need to take any further precautions.

The best thing that they can do is regularly wash their hands if they have travelled on public transport or been shaking people's hands.

And what about travel?

Because tha government is warning about people coming back from places like Singapore and Hong Kong.

But I mean all these traveling hubs just link up with each other.

People might fly from Singapore to Dubai or Istanbul or whatever it might be should people be wearing masks when they're getting on airplanes, for example, it's half term this week.

A lot of people going on the day.

So much masks are of limited utility, unless you're using the right type of mask in the right way on washing your hands frequently whenever you touch it.

So, actually, at the moment, public health England advice is not to Emma's because we don't really know how effective they are.

Particularly not the basic surgical mask that you're seeing is relatively ineffective in terms of protecting people.

Now, summer's unwell toe wear a mask might be beneficial because it more limit when they coffin stays.

How far the spray goes on.

It will also stop them covering their mouth with their hands and then shaking hands with someone.

But wearing a mask isn't necessary.

It is important if people are traveling, though Thio follow public health England's advice that if they return from infected country, they may need to self isolate for 14 days.