The UK Government today announced it has moved to the second phase of its coronavirus action plan – attempts to delay the worst of the epidemic until the spring or summer.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a briefing with his Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and said anyone with a new cough should isolate themselves at home for a week. They also urged elderly people not to go on cruises and schools not to go on trips abroad.
Some were expecting more drastic measures – bans on large gatherings, school closures, and the shutting of pubs and restaurants – as have been taken by other countries like Ireland, France and Italy.
Here, MailOnline breaks down why the Government announced the steps they did, and what stopped them committing to the ones they didn’t:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty (left), and Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance (right) today announced the Government was moving forward with its coronavirus action plan
Anyone who gets a cough should stay at home
Anyone who gets a new cough should stay at home in isolation for at least a week, Mr Johnson announced today.
The advice applies to people who have coughs or fevers regardless of whether they have travelled abroad or not.
Official guidance now says: ‘If you have symptoms of coronavirus infection (COVID-19), however mild, stay at home and do not leave your house for 7 days from when your symptoms started.’
England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said people who get only mild symptoms may spread the virus to a lot of others because the coronavirus is most infectious during the first few days after someone first starts to feel unwell, potentially before they realise they could have it.
Dr Alexander Edwards, from the University of Reading, said: ‘This looks like a sound strategy from the health authorities in the UK.’
But Professor Graham Cooke, from Imperial College London, said on Monday that this could be an over-reach and many people with colds will end up staying off work.
‘The decision on implementing delay measures is a delicate balance of benefits and harms,’ he said.
‘We are still in a time of year when fever and cough is more likely to be due to other, more benign, viruses.
‘For example, [colds and flu] continue to circulate. Introducing self-isolation measures without a proven diagnosis at this time is more likely to cause unnecessary inconvenience (and possibly harm) than it is to help in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2.’
The same guidance also said anyone with symptoms should try to stay two metres away from people in their own homes.
Entire households will soon be asked to stay at home in isolation for at least a week if anybody they live with becomes ill with a cough or fever
People will soon be asked to stay home if someone in their home is sick
Entire households will soon be asked to stay at home in isolation for at least a week if anybody they live with becomes ill with a cough or fever.
This is not currently the advice, but Mr Johnson said people should expect it to be announced in the coming days or weeks.
The thinking behind the rule is that people whose family members catch the illness are likely to catch it before anybody realises coronavirus is the cause.
Professor Jonathan Ball, from the University of Nottingham, said last week that this was unnecessary unless the person felt ill themselves.
He said: ‘Those in self-isolation should try to minimise interactions with household members during the isolation period and follow the self-isolation advice on the government website.
‘There is no need to isolate an entire family because an uninfected person poses no risk.
‘If someone else within the family then develops symptoms they too should immediately isolate.’
And it is not a given that coronavirus would infect an entire household if one resident caught it, another added, as long as people are sensible.
Professor Tom Solomon, from the University of Liverpool, added: ‘Although there is clearly an increased risk for household contact of patients in isolation at home, it is not inevitable that they will become infected.
‘As far as possible the person infected with the coronavirus should keep themselves away from other household members.’
Over-70s should not go on cruise ships
The Government has advised elderly people not to go on cruise ships.
The dangers of cruises were demonstrated by the disastrous quarantine attempt on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, on which around 700 people caught the coronavirus when it was moored off the coast of Yokohama, Japan.
As the situation was deteriorating on the ship, scientists admitted that cruise ships are known to be environments at risk of incubating illnesses.
Professor John Oxford, from Queen Mary University of London, said: ‘Invariably the ships are overcrowded and with so many passengers hygiene levels can slip.
‘I suspect also that the passengers [had] not been properly quarantined since they have gone through a virus incubation time and infections are still appearing.
‘There must be a great temptation to interact with other passengers exercising on deck etc.’
Others pointed out that people join cruises from all over the world, creating a melting pot of illnesses on-board.
Dr Simon Clarke, from the University of Reading, said: ‘Having a large number of people in relatively close confines is a recipe for transmission.’
He added: ‘Unfortunately, the more elderly demographic found on a typical liner are more likely to be susceptible to anything which might present a serious health challenge.’
Schools should not take their students on trips abroad, Mr Johnson said (stock)
International school trips should be cancelled
Schools should not take their students on trips abroad, Mr Johnson said.
Skiing trips to Italy during the February half-term are understood to be what has triggered the UK’s spiralling epidemic.
While hundreds or even thousands of children were on week-long breaks to the Alps, the Italian coronavirus crisis exploded and infected thousands of people, both residents and holidaymakers.
Many cases in the UK have been linked back to travellers returning from Italy.
The country is now off-limits to tourists, but similar situations are unfolding in other popular school trip destinations like France and Germany.
There is no particular risk to children – in fact they are believed to be at an extremely low risk of getting seriously ill with the coronavirus, and an almost non-existent risk of dying – but they may act as carriers, bringing the virus onto British soil and infecting the adults around them. Teachers and other chaperones are also a risk.
NHS will stop testing all suspected coronavirus patients
The NHS will alter its approach to testing for coronavirus, with only those at hospitals to be formally examined, Professor Whitty said.
‘It is no longer necessary for us to identify every case and we will move from having testing mainly done in homes and outpatients and walk-in centres, to a situation where people who are remaining at home do not need testing,’ he said.
‘We will pivot all the testing capacity to identify those in hospitals who have symptoms so we can pick them up early, make sure we treat them well and ensure they don’t pass on the virus to other people in hospitals.
‘So there will be a change in hospital and other testing systems.’
Professor Whitty said people from now on would be tested ‘irrespective of their travel history’ if they are showing severe symptoms.
So what measures didn’t Mr Johnson introduce?
Cheltenham Festival went ahead today, despite the growing coronavirus threat
Sporting events aren’t banned…
Mr Johnson said Number 10 was still considering whether to ban sporting events in the UK, such as Premier League football matches.
Italy – the centre of Europe’s escalating crisis – has already banned all fixtures until April, and Spain today suspended its top football league.
The US’ premier soccer, basketball and hockey leagues (MLS, NBA and NHL) have all also been suspended to contain the crisis.
In other sports, England is considering calling off its cricket tour of Sri Lanka and F1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix was called off.
But Mr Johnson said: ‘The scientific advice is this [cancelling sports events] has little effect on the spread – but it does place a burden on other public services.’
Thousands of people cram into stadiums and are packed on top of each other for up hours, raising the risk the virus could spread to those in attendance.
UK health officials say anyone who comes within two metres of an infected patient are at risk, with the virus known to be transmitted through the air and on surfaces.
But Sir Patrick Vallance, Number 10’s chief scientific adviser, added: ‘On average, one person infects two or three others.’
Therefore, he added, there is a ‘low probability’ of the virus spreading in a stadium and that the risk is greater in smaller environments.
… Nor are other mass gatherings
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said Scotland will start to advise against any events with more than 500 people starting from Monday.
But Mr Johnson admitted officials are still considering bringing in a ban on large gatherings like theatre performances, sporting events and concerts.
Experts say doing them too soon risks people getting ‘crisis fatigue’, meaning they get bored of staying at home and start to ignore the advice as the epidemic gets to its most dangerous point.
Experts do not totally agree with the decision to delay this sort of ban, and some have called for it to be done now.
Professor Devi Sridhar, from the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘Now is the time for the UK government to ban large gatherings, ask people to stop non-essential travel, recommend employers shift to home working and ramp up the response.’
And Professor Martin Hibberd, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, added: ‘The UK response has clearly not been sufficient, as numbers are continuing to climb and we are at risk of following the trajectory of other European countries.
‘If the aim is simply to delay the peak of the outbreak till the summer, then perhaps the UK response is enough.
‘However, WHO is challenging the world to do more and we know from China that aggressive curtailment policies can work to reduce numbers.’
Schools won’t be shut
Japan dramatically ordered the closure of all schools in the country for a month to halt the spread of the virus.
Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Lithuania have all also announced they will close all schools and colleges to fight the infection.
But Mr Johnson again refused to follow suit – despite more than 350,000 people signing a petition urging the government to take action.
Concerned parents are calling on the PM to send pupils home, and universities and schools are already preparing ‘home-learning packs’.
Manchester Metropolitan University and the London School of Economics today announced an end to face-to-face teaching.
But Mr Johnson said schools are not being closed at this time because the move could make matters worse.
Bonnygate Primary School in Essex last week closed for two days due to an unconfirmed case of coronavirus
He said: ‘We are not, repeat not, closing schools now. The scientific advice is that this could do more harm than good at this time.’
Keith Neal, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Nottingham, warned shutting schools could be a bad idea.
He said it could lead to more grandparents – the group of patients most vulnerable to the coronavirus – looking after children.
No travel ban
Banning travel would have had a ‘minimal’ effect on delaying the spread of coronavirus and it is too late to do so now, Sir Patrick said.
It comes after US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day ban on all travel to America from continental Europe.
Sir Patrick said stopping flights from China had been considered early on in the plan but that it was concluded the effect would not have made a big difference.
He said the evidence had borne that out and added that it is now ‘too late’ to be implementing such a measure.
He said: ‘You can’t, in the way the world works, you can’t stop that, unless everybody decides to do it all at once and it’s certainly too late now to be trying that.’
Mr Trump’s decision to restrict travel has been criticised by scientists, security analysts and the European Union.
In a joint statement on the travel ban, EU presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen said they ‘disapproved’ of the decision.
They said: ‘The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires co-operation rather than unilateral action.
‘The European Union disapproves of the fact that the US decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation.’
Professor Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘At best travel bans only delay the spread of an epidemic by a short while.’
He added that the US ban ‘will do little if anything to reduce the burden of infection within America’ – where the infection is spreading rapidly.
Staff don’t have to work from home
Many commentators expected the PM to officially call for all employees across the UK to work from home wherever possible.
Public Health England has already asked businesses to ‘consider the possibility of home working’.
And in a blog post addressing social distancing strategies, it said was working with firms to ‘encourage them to look at options for minimising contact’.
Hundreds of businesses, including Google and Lloyds, have already recommended home-working over coronavirus fears.
But Mr Johnson did not address the potential measure, offering little clarity to Brits who are concerned about catching the virus on their commute.
It means the official line remains, as per PHE: ‘You should continue going to work as normal, unless you have been told otherwise by your employer.’
Football matches will still be shown in pubs
Leicester City Football Club fans watch their team play Tottenham in a pub
The government’s upgraded response to the coronavirus outbreak was expected to result in pubs being banned from showing football matches.
According to The Times, sources said it was possible that no games would be shown in pubs to avoid congestion of people.
And it was also suggested that Premier League fixtures would not be shown live in the prime-time 3pm slot on a Saturday.
But Number 10 made no mention of the measure, meaning thousands of sports fans will still congregate in packed pubs and bars to watch key matches.
Pubs and restaurants won’t close
Italy’s government made the unprecedented step of ordering all its restaurants and bars to shut to halt the ever-growing crisis.
The World Health Organization’s Dr David Nabarro said all sorts of gatherings – not just ‘big events’ – could be cancelled in the UK.
He said smaller events such as ‘gatherings in community halls, in religious spaces and services’ may be halted, as well as pubs.
Pubs have already recorded a slump in demand because of the coronavirus crisis in the UK, with footfall down 40 per cent in some cities.
Before the closures, Italian authorities required that bars, restaurants and cafes slash their opening hours and make sure customers can be kept far apart.
Bars were only allowed to open between 8am and 6pm and only if a distance of at least three feet (1m) could be kept between each customer.
Old people won’t yet be ‘cocooned’ in care homes
Hundreds of thousands of old people – who are most at risk of dying if they catch the coronavirus – could be shut in the care homes they live in.
The ‘cocoon’ strategy was confirmed by Government officials and would rely on an army of volunteers to help care for the vulnerable population.
Officials said the idea was that ‘by the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity has been achieved in the rest of the population’.
Herd immunity is when so many people in a population have already had a virus – and become immune to it as a result – that the illness stops spreading because there are not enough potential victims for it to infect and move through.
The plan will go ahead if the coronavirus outbreak worsens, as Number predicts will happen in the coming weeks.
The Government has advised elderly people not to go on cruise ships. Pictured, the Diamond Princess, which had almost 700 cases of the coronavirus
Elderly Britons won’t be told to stay at home just yet
US officials last week issued guidance urging the elderly to stay at home as much as possible.
But the UK has yet to introduce this measure, despite there being imminent plans in the pipeline to ask pensioners to cut down on social outings.
Professor Whitty warned advice would be coming for elderly and vulnerable people to isolate themselves from social gatherings.
He said plans to protect Britain’s most vulnerable – people who are older and those with severe health conditions – was the ‘next stage along’.
But he added that the Government does not think it is appropriate to introduce the measures just yet ‘because it is too early in the course of the epidemic’.
Professor Whitty warned the move would have ‘big practical implications for them’ and may lead to loneliness.
He added: ‘While we will need to move to that stage, we do not think this is the right moment along the pandemic to do so. But that point will come.’