According to the People's Daily.

This is the fourth day of the building of the 1000 bed hospital and Wu Han, due to be completed by Sunday.

This is the epicenter of this novel Corona virus.

The numbers needing medical help in Hu Bei province are growing.

More than 2700 people have been diagnosed, 461 of them are severely ill and 81 have died.

The Chinese government is under pressure, dispatching the premier and vice premier to the hoop region to assess the situation in Yemen.

Surely you football when George to you, Premier Li Kirch Young promising to ship in more protection Gary and medical teams and guaranteeing food supplies while later urging construction workers to hurry up with the hospital.

The rate of infection and spread is still uncertain.

A flu epidemic can kill tens or even hundreds of thousands in other Corona virus outbreaks like SARS.

In the early two thousands, 800 died, but this is early days.

Some experts at Imperial College London estimate that at the upper end, as many as 100,000 people could already be infected.

However, while sicker people appear more vulnerable to the virus, this is not across the board.

Well, the most recent reports was a paper and lance.

It just came out shows that actually did quite a wide age range.

And not everyone who is ending up in hospital has risk factors.

It does appear that people with diabetes or high blood pressure are greater risk.

But that doesn't mean to say that other people are spared.

The suspicion is the Corona virus started here in the Wu Han Seafood market, possibly from wild animals sold their.

They've looked at the market itself to see if there was a virus in the market itself, like contamination on dhe.

Some of the samples from the environmental sampling came back positive for novel coronavirus way understand that they're also testing animals.

We haven't heard of any positive animals that have come back.

The virus has spread, but not in huge numbers to other countries.

For many governments are taking their citizens out of Wu Han.

UK Foreign Office, though, has been accused of being slow, very, very limited contact.

To be honest, they're not really reached out to British expat community in Wuhan and ask doesn't extremely disappointing for us.

I'll find every scary situation to be in order very much like to be repatriated.

Then I would like it to be done So now, in a safe manner where when we get back to U K Wik warranty, so we cannot.

There's no risk of spreading the virus to other people in the UK and indeed, tonight, the health secretary said they were advising people returning from China toe isolate themselves for 14 days.

The Foreign Office is rapidly advancing measures to bring UK nationals back from WHO by province.

I've asked my officials to ensure there are appropriate measures in place upon arrival to look after them and to protect the public.

The lock down of Wu Han and surrounding cities continues people only venturing out when they have to and medical staff, he said, to be exhausted as the crisis shows no signs of abating.

I just want to thank all the doctors and nurses and we'll have been out flying the virus.

It's ah, it's really inspiring and very, very brave people.

One report from China said that the infection has been passed on by people not knowing their ill, making it harder to detect and easier to spread.

The main symptoms, however, are fever, dry cough and shortness of breath.

Well.

Earlier I spoke to Tang Bo inside Wuhan.

He's a correspondent for the China Global Television Network, which is owned by the national broadcaster on I asked him what had been happening and we're on today.

Entrusted by President Xi Jinping, Family Kitchen arrived on Monday in behind to instruct on epidemic control and prevention efforts against the virus.

He spoke through a walkie talkie to an infected patient on video screen, and he met with and also encouraged Frontline medical personnels on permanently also visited the side where construction crews for BZ booting one of two new hospitals that health authorities ordered up to house those infected.

He has declared that the country will spare no efforts to help complete the new hospital by February 3rd and here is now leading a high level group charged with fighting the outbreak.

How ordinary people reacting, I mean, do they feel that everything that should have been done has been done quickly enough?

We'll have there been failures.

Yes, indeed, there are pressures from the public that they're blaming the government.

The local government boy is not react.

Reacting really quickly.

Thio Theo Outbreak.

And on Monday, the same day when the family time later to the city, the mayor off Wuhan City received an interview from China State television saying that Hey, we'll be able to take the responsibility off those thieves, information and disclosure and the delayed off the disclosed disclosure off the information.

And he and the leader of the CPC Party Committee of the city will, when necessary, to step down if they have to take the responsibility.

Thio better manage the virus control and privation efforts against it, or joining us now is Dr Natalie McDermott, a clinical lecturer at King's College London, and Carrie Brown, director of the Loud China Institute, also King's College, who was a British diplomat in Beijing at the time of the 2002 SARS outbreak.

But first Dr Netley McDermott, this interesting advisory from the government tonight that people who return from infected areas should self isolate is that a technical term that you, as an expert, would regard as viable well, obviously any form of tryingto ask people to isolate themselves or quarantining involves the corporation of those who are being quarantined or isolated, so it is feasible, provided there is good information to the people who are being asked to self isolate and the reasons behind it.

Andi.

It's also wise because at the moment we're not sure if this virus can spread at the point when people don't have symptoms yet.

So it appears that maybe the cases there have been some cases in China that have done that on, so it would be wise for people who know they have traveled from an area or who have had contact to self, isolate themselves on coming back and avoid large gatherings of people from your own expertise.

Have you been able, in any sense, in the last two or three weeks, during which this has been happening off understanding more about the Corona virus?

I think we're understanding Maur as we watch it spread and as we see the extent of disease, there's still a lot for us to learn on.

Some of that will evolve work inside a laboratory, not just the observation of what's happening happening clinically.

But I think that we're seeing an infection that for most people is likely a relatively a mild form of influenza.

But then, for a certain group of people, particularly the elderly and those with medical problems, they're developing more severe infections and pneumonias and inflammation in the lungs on for a very small group of that group.

A proportion of dying on that then poses the question whether we really know how many people are really suffering from it.

Yes, I think it's difficult to know exactly how many because there may be some people who simply have a cough or a cold or just feeling a bit under the weather on.

They're not going to seek medical attention and then they may not be tested for it.

So it's likely that there may be a large number of people who could be carrying the virus but no unwell enough to seek medical attention.

And so we're not tested from our own experience in Britain.

We don't know anything about this particular virus because it hasn't been seen before.

But we don't do know about SARS.

Do we see much linkage?

S o the reports so far about the genetic makeup of this virus, all that they are quite similar to SARS.

There's about an 80% also match in terms of the genetic sequence.

Eso it will behave in a similar manner.

But the question is that 20% difference does that change how the virus behaves in terms of how infectious is on.

Does it change the severity of disease that you might get on?

So far, this disease does not seem to be as severe as the SARS infection was.

But obviously, we're still learning from this virus at the moment.

Dr McDermott, Thank you very much indeed.

For joining us.

Thank you.

Well, now let me turn them Thio.

Uh, Carrie Brown on now, Amazingly, you were actually a diplomat in Beijing during the this hours experience.

Can you, in any way from this detached position, draw any comparisons?

Is the control of the state just is absolute.

Well, I think the kind of idea in 2003 I think it was when size really broke out in mainland China that the central government sort of lost control for a while.

Beijing in the spring of that year was like a ghost city on the rest of the country.

Everyone sort of went into lock down.

But one of the complaints then was lack of information on the fact that until one T.

Xiang was bought in really to control it, it's the sort of mayor of Beijing, the head of Beijing, that there was no real leadership.

There's a lot of criticism.

So do you.

So this one is having bean much more effectively handled by the Chinese.

Well, so far, I think they've acted very, very quickly, but they've been criticized for that.

So having complete lock down in one hand and other places you know has created, in a sense, another sense of panic.

Also, social media now is much, much stronger.

And so people are spreading their own kind of news that is sometimes being help from.

Sometimes the senses of have to pilot and stop people spreading news.

This regard is unhelpful.

Is the government trusted more now?

Well, that's questionable.

I mean, she jingping is the man who's meant to do with crises, and he's regarded as a strong leader.

So the logic would be he had to deal with something like this, and that's what we're seeing happening at the moment.

Is he able to do that?

But there has also bean domestic sort of criticism to some extent, and I've even read accounts that he is regarded as having bean somewhat damaged by this.

Well, this is the conscious part of China under him is the ultimate risk manager in the ultimate crisis manager.

And this is precisely the thing that I think people in other areas are happy to kind of live with, you know, kind of Maur repression because it's meant to be the particle deal with this on.

The real problem is, the moment is we don't know where this will end if they do deal with it, and they may, and they may very well then that's fine.

If they don't, then it is a legitimacy problem.

Carrie Brown Thank you very much indeed for coming in.