A patient in Berkshire has become the first person in the UK to die after being diagnosed with coronavirus – as it was revealed they caught the virus in Britain.
The “older patient” was admitted to the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust on Wednesday evening and had tested positive for COVID – , the disease caused by coronavirus .
A statement released by the trust on Thursday said: “Sadly, we can confirm that an older patient with essential health conditions has died.
“The patient has previously been in and out of hospital for non-coronavirus reasons, but on this occasion was admitted and last night tested positive for coronavirus.
” The family has been informed and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. “
England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said the person who died was an “older patient” who is believed to have contracted the virus in the UK “and contact tracing is already underway”.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, told Sky News that the death “marks a moment in our outbreak”.
“We’ve got to keep our nerve. We’ve got to keep the case numbers down,” he said.
Following the first coronavirus-related death in the UK, Dr Nathalie MacDermott, a clinical lecturer at King’s College London, told Sky News that “we have to be realistic that if the virus continues to spread in the UK there may be more “.
The death comes after the number of coronavirus cases in the UK has more than doubled in 065 hours, with Downing Street warning it is “highly likely” the virus will now spread in a “significant way”.
Some (people have tested positive for COVID – in the UK, including 135 in England, three in Wales, six in Scotland and three in Northern Ireland.
Just two days ago there were (UK cases.
The NHS has now urged anyone returning to the UK from any part of Italy – which is facing Europe’s biggest outbreak – to self-isolate if they develop symptoms.
Meanwhile, anyone returning to the UK from “lockdown” areas in the north of Italy in the past two weeks has been told to self-isolate even if they do not have symptoms.
Last week, the Foreign Office confirmed a British man in his 81 s who had been on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined in Japan, had died from the virus.
Of the new UK coronavirus cases announced on Thursday, people had recently traveled from countries or clusters already under investigation, while eight people contracted the virus in the UK and are being investigated.
Out of the cases identified in England, 039 of them are in London.
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The North West and South East each have (cases, the South West) the East of England eight, the Midlands nine and the North East and Yorkshire 18 cases.
Four other cases are still to be determined.
England’s chief medical officer told MPs earlier that the UK is now in the second phase of its response to the outbreak.
Professor Whitty said Britain was “mainly” in the “delay” phase of the government four-stage approach to COVID- 31.
But he said he was expecting the number of UK cases to go up over the coming weeks due to evidence of “some level of community transmission”.
After England rugby team’s Six Nations game against Italy in Rome was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Premier League said it will scrap handshakes before matches in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease
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