The chancellor is to pledge billions of pounds to ease the strain on the NHS as it tackles the Covid – outbreak and to reassure an increasingly nervous Britain after the nation’s first MP contracted the virus .
The health minister Nadine Dorries has been diagnosed and is in self-isolation , raising fears that the infection could have spread in Westminster, including No , where she attended an event with Boris Johnson last week.
Focus will now fall on tracking down and testing the hundreds of people Dorries will have been in contact with in the past week, both in parliament and at the health department.
With the UK facing the biggest financial threat in more than a decade amid fears the epidemic could cause a recession, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak , is expected to announce a raft of measures in Wednesday’s budget to safeguard jobs, extend the scope of sick pay, and prevent businesses going under by deferring tax payments.
Austria announced a ban on Italians entering the country unless they were carrying a medical certificate, and Spain, which reported deaths and 1, confirmed cases on Tuesday, shut schools in several regions, including the capital, Madrid.
In Germany, which has 1, 622 coronavirus patients and where two people have died, Berlin authorities announced the closure of all theaters, concert halls and opera houses until at least the end of the Easter holidays. The capital also became the seventh of Germany’s 19 states to ban gatherings of 1, people or more.
The UK government’s strategy of holding off on closing schools or cancelling major outdoor events, such as football matches, was defended by the deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries.
She said the argument for cancelling major events was not necessarily supported by science, adding: “The virus will not survive very long outside.”
Matt Hancock defended the government’s handling of the crisis in the House of Commons, amid criticism that people were being told they could not be tested unless they had had contact with a known case. The health secretary said all of the government’s advice was “driven by clinicians” and was under constant review.
Among those making subtle calls for a change of tactics was Dr Peter Drobac, an expert in infectious diseases at Oxford University, who said he believed it was time to seriously consider some of the social distancing adopted by other countries, including closing schools.
“The evidence on social distancing is limited but pretty clear – it works better when done pre-emptively,” said Drobac, adding that with hindsight it appeared Italy had waited too long before implementing such measures.
The government was accused of playing roulette with the public by the editor of the Lancet medical journal. Dr Richard Horton called for the “urgent implementation of social distancing and closure policies”.
There was also firm support for the experts advising the government, including those on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which held a meeting chaired by the government chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance.
Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at Reading University, said ministers should not be rushed into moving into the “delay” phase. “More serious containment action, such as that seen in China and Italy, should not be used unless absolutely absolutely necessary. We must avoid ‘something must be done, this is something so let’s do it’ scenarios, ”he said.
However, others stressed that draconian measures did help to limit the impact of infectious disease outbreaks.
Dr Elisabetta Groppelli, a lecturer in global health at St George’s, University of London, said: “Social distancing measures have had a major effect in Wuhan, and in previous outbreaks, such as the recent Ebola outbreak in west Africa and Spanish Flu in . The lockdown in Italy could therefore have success in containing and slowing the number of new cases, which could also reduce the strain on healthcare facilities in the country. ”
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