Top scientist says UK is facing major coronavirus outbreak

Britain’s top government scientific advisor has warned today that the coronavirus outbreak has started in Britain, and the virus is now spreading person to person in the UK.

Sir Patrick Vallance said the true numbers of those infected is certainly much higher as “This is a global epidemic and we would expect to see more cases in the UK.”

He told Sky News on Friday morning “this is the start of an outbreak, clearly” across the UK.

At the time of writing, 42 out of 116 cases are in London or the south east, and health officials have still not been able to identify the source of 10 cases of the virus.

Sir Patrick said, “We are in the position now where we have got person-to-person transmission of this in the UK and therefore we can expect more cases.

“This is now outbreaks in the community where we have got some individuals that we don’t know where it has come from and therefore that tells you that something is circulating.

“We are definitely in that phase.”

He said that an epidemic in the UK could take 12 weeks to peak and the virus maybe mutating, to possibly a more infectious virus, but less deadly.

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned governments around the world that the continued spread of coronavirus “is not a drill.”

The world has now surpassed the 100,000 milestone of global infections of the virus, Ghebreyesus said that public health authorities globally can contain and combat coronavirus.

Britain’s first death from the deadly coronavirus was confirmed on Thursday afternoon. The man had tested positive on Wednesday evening and has now died as he had “underlying health conditions.”