Health minister Nadine Dorries has coronavirus

Nadine Dorries, Health minister and Conservative MP, has been diagnosed with coronavirus.

Dorries, the first MP to test positive, is currently in self-isolation as she’s been advised to take all precautions.

She is known to have met thousands of people in the last week. The news comes ahead of Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor, delivering his first budget later today.

A sixth person has died from the virus in the UK, which has a total of 382 cases.

The latest person to die was a man in his early 80s who had underlying health conditions.

On Tuesday, the UK’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Harries has said, the UK will see “many thousands of people” contract coronavirus.

Leading scientists have compared the UK is looking likely to be on the same trajectory and have compared the rate of coronavirus infections to that of Italy.

University College London biology professor, Dr Francis Balloux said, “The trajectory of the epidemic in the UK is so far roughly comparable to the one in Northern Italy, but with the epidemic in Northern Italy two to three weeks ahead of the situation in the UK.”

On Tuesday the deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries told the BBC that the NHS are more prepared than Italy.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme Dr Harries said the UK has a “single command mechanism” to deal with a coronavirus epidemic or a pandemic crises.

Dr Harries said, “Italy clearly has a very good health system but I think I actually heard one of the advisers on the radio today noticing the lessons for other countries to learn.