'Family cluster' among 13 new UK coronavirus cases - including first in Scotland

Thirteen new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the UK - including the first one in Scotland.

It is the biggest jump in COVID-19 cases the UK has seen in one day - and means all four home nations have now been affected.

The Scottish patient, who is receiving treatment after being placed in isolation, is a resident of the Tayside area and has recently returned from Italy.

The other 12 cases are in England - including a "family cluster".

Three of the new patients caught coronavirus in England from a man in Surrey who tested positive on Friday.

They are members of his family and are all adults. One is also from Surrey and two are from West Sussex.

Health officials are still trying to find out how the original Surrey patient caught the illness in the UK without having travelled abroad.

Another of the new cases, from Essex, has not been abroad and it is not clear where they picked up the virus.

The eight other new cases in England are believed to have caught the virus abroad:

The 13 new cases join three that were reported yesterday: one from Hertfordshire, one from Gloucestershire (linked to today's) and one from Berkshire.

One of those three is a staff member at St Mary's School in Tetbury and another works at Willow Bank Infant School in Woodley. Both schools have said they are carrying out a deep clean.

Burford (Day & Boarding) School in the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire, is among schools to have been temporarily closed after pupils returned from half-term holidays in northern Italy.

The new cases bring the total number of confirmed in the UK to 36, including one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will join Monday's COBRA meeting, chaired by Boris Johnson, following the confirmation of a case in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon told Sky News the diagnosis was "not unexpected" and that Scotland had to be prepared for the "possibility of a significant outbreak".

There were "well-established procedures and protocols to plan for that", she said.

Scottish authorities are trying to trace anyone who may have come into "close contact" with the patient.

That involves "either face to face contact or spending more than 15 minutes within two metres of an infected person", a statement said.

Earlier, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that in the event of a widespread outbreak in the UK, all options to contain the virus would be on the table, including banning large events and locking down cities.

It comes as the government announced it has a "battle plan" to tackle coronavirus including bringing retired doctors back to work.

It is understood new emergency powers will be brought in to give schools, councils and other parts of the public sector powers to suspend laws - including rowing back on health and safety measures like allowing larger class sizes - to cope with a pandemic.

The government is also considering whether to encourage more home working and discourage unnecessary travel.

The strategy is based on its existing contingency plans for responding to a flu pandemic, but has been adapted to take into account the differences with COVID-19.

Worst-case-scenario plans show 80% of the population could contract the virus, with up to 500,000 deaths.

Cemeteries and crematoriums have been told to make sure plans are in place to deal with a pandemic.

Fears over coronavirus have sparked a rush on items such as hand gel - and, as a result, products usually dispatched within a few days on Amazon are instead being pitched with a delivery date of between several weeks to over a month.

Supermarket Tesco has sold out of most of its range of anti-bacterial hand sanitisers online.

Health officials in Scotland are to begin testing people with flu-like symptoms for coronavirus, even if they have not visited affected areas.

NHS Lothian has introduced a "drive-through" testing centre at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. It is for some patients who have been assessed by a specialist team and who have an appointment so they can be tested for the virus in their cars.

On Friday, a British man who was on board a quarantined cruise ship in Japan became the first UK fatality of the coronavirus.

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Public Health England has concluded more than 11,715 tests so far, and all but 36 have been negative.

Expert teams are actively tracing those who have come into contact with a suspected case.

The government has said unless an individual has been contacted already, or has travelled to an affected area, they should be reassured it is not necessary for them to take any further action.

Meanwhile, several British holidaymakers who had been in lockdown at an outbreak-hit hotel in Tenerife have been cleared to return home after testing negative for the illness.

In other global developments: