Coronavirus Latest: Here’s What We Know About The Spread Of The Outbreak
Two months after the new virus – named Covid-19 – was first identified in Wuhan it is still relatively poorly understood, with scientists working to identify a definitive source.
Health authorities in the UK and worldwide have been working on the premise that the virus has an incubation period of 14 days, however this was thrown into doubt on Saturday when local government in China’s Hubei province reported the case of a man who had not shown symptoms until 27 days after he had been infected.
Here’s the latest on coronavirus:
What’s the situation in the UK?
Four cruise ship passengers flown to England this weekend have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the UK to 13.
The four – confirmed to be British nationals – have been transferred to specialist NHS infection centres.
They are the first diagnoses of the Covid-19 strain in people brought back to the UK on repatriation flights.
They had been among a group of 30 Britons and two Irish citizens who arrived at a quarantine block at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside on Saturday.
England’s chief medical officer said the virus was passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which had been held for more than two weeks off the coast of Japan.
It comes as dozens of evacuees from a coronavirus-hit cruise ship spent their first night quarantined at Arrowe Park hospital on the Wirral.
It is understood some British nationals who are part of the Diamond Princess crew opted to remain. Since being kept on board the cruise liner in the port of Yokohama, more than 600 passengers and crew have been infected.
British couple David and Sally Abel, from Northamptonshire, who were were on the cruise for their 50th wedding anniversary, have both been diagnosed with pneumonia and relatives complained they had been moved to a “prison-like” hospital in Japan.
It comes as more than a hundred people who had been flown out of Wuhan were released from quarantine in a Milton...
