Northern Ireland diagnoses first coronavirus case – BBC News, BBC News
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Northern Ireland has diagnosed its first case of coronavirus, bringing the UK’s total to
Authorities said the patient had traveled from northern Italy via Dublin and had showed a presumptive positive result, which would be confirmed by a lab in England.
Those patients contracted the virus while they were in Italy and Tenerife.
Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said: “We have been planning for the first positive case in Northern Ireland and have made clear that it was a question of when not if.
“We have robust infection control measures in place which enable us to respond immediately. Our health service is used to managing infections and would assure the public that we are prepared. “
Dr McBride said the case was not linked to a school trip to Italy. Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency said it is “working rapidly” to trace and check the patient’s contacts to prevent further spread.
For a second day, more cases have been reported outside of inside China.
The person who contracted the virus in Tenerife is from Derbyshire. A school in the county has closed because of the case .
It is not clear which part of the UK the other person is from, but they contracted the virus in northern Italy.
Italy now has more than
case s of coronavirus with authorities there reporting that 27 People have died.
‘Only a matter of time’
The latest positive test comes after England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, warned onward transmission of the virus between people in the UK was “just a matter of time”.
He said if the outbreak intensifies, it may be necessary to close schools or stop mass gatherings of people for “quite a long period of time, probably more than two months”. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office has been in communication with local authorities about their “mass death preparedness”, BBC Newsnight understands.
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