Home Business News UK coronavirus cases soar to almost 1,000

UK coronavirus cases soar to almost 1,000

by LLB Reporter
14th Mar 20 11:52 am

As of Saturday morning, Public Health Wales has announced they have 22 more confirmed cases of coronavirus bringing the total to 60, and across the UK, the total now stands 945.

Dr Chris Williams, incident director for the novel coronavirus outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said that health officials were trying to identify the close contacts of all the new cases.

Dr Williams said, “We can confirm that 22 new cases have tested positive for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Wales, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 60.

“The process of identifying and contacting close contacts of the new cases is underway, and we are taking all appropriate actions to protect the public’s health.”

Last week the Welsh Health Minister, Vaughan Gething, warned that up to 20,000 people in Wales could die from the pandemic.

On Friday, Gething said, “This is actually about how we make choices based on the best scientific advice available, based on the best advice of our chief medical officers.

“That’s going to be the way the government behaves, because our priority is to save as many lives as possible. And it should not get away from the fact that is what we are talking about.

“In an average flu season across the UK, there are 8-10,000 deaths. In the worst-case scenario, as you know in Wales, for coronavirus could be over 20,000 deaths.

“That’s the choice we are making in how to use our resources.”

The British government are planning to introduce emergency laws from next week to ban gatherings of more than 500 people.

A Whitehall source said the government has drafted the emergency legislation.

The Times newspaper reported the new law will give police and immigration officers power to detain anyone that is suspected of having the virus, the law could remain in place for two years.

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.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said Europe is now the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.

Over 5,000 people have died across the world and almost 140,000 are infected with the virus across 127 countries.

WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a conference on Friday, the death toll is a “tragic milestone.”

Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London’s faculty of medicine has said Italy could have more than 100,000 coronavirus cases.

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