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Coronavirus: returning Britons could be kept in quarantine for 14 days

<span>Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Media</span>
Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Media

Hundreds of British nationals brought home from China because of the coronavirus outbreak are expected to be quarantined at a secure NHS facility for a fortnight, it has emerged.

As the last British Airways flights from Beijing and Shanghai returned to the UK after the airline suspended operations in China, about 200 Britons in the vicinity of Wuhan were preparing to leave on an emergency chartered plane.

They will be asked to sign a contract confirming their willingness to spend a fortnight in quarantine before being allowed to board the special flight. Anyone displaying signs of illness will be barred from boarding, Downing Street said.

The government had hoped for the flights to depart on Thursday, but it was announced the night before that that would not be the case. It is understood Chinese officials have not yet granted permission for the chartered flight to depart.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We are doing everything we can to get British people in Wuhan safely back to the UK. A number of countries’ flights have been unable to take off as planned.

“We continue working urgently to organise a flight to the UK as soon as possible.

“We remain in close contact with the Chinese authorities and conversations are ongoing at all levels.”

Graphic: confirmed coronavirus cases

Planners earlier looked at holding returnees at a hotel or military base. But, after an emergency Cobra meeting on Wednesday afternoon chaired by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, it is understood that they will be flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and taken to an NHS facility to be monitored and treated if symptoms develop.

As the scramble among foreign nationals to get out of China intensified, there was controversy over the rights of British families including Chinese passport-holders to leave the country together. Some dual nationals face being trapped in the Wuhan region, where the virus broke out, even as their loved ones go home.

After it emerged that China’s policy of not recognising dual nationality meant that some families would be separated, one married couple with a nine-year-old daughter who are trapped in the region said it was their “worst nightmare”.

The death toll from the virus has risen to 133, and the number of people infected has tripled in three days to nearly 6,000 worldwide, including newly confirmed cases in countries including Finland, France, Australia and the UAE. That is more than the number of confirmed cases of Sars in mainland China during the outbreak in 2003.

The Department for Health and Social Care said 130 people in the UK had been tested for the virus and no one had yet been diagnosed with it.

What is the virus causing illness in Wuhan?

It is a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals, or possibly seafood. New and troubling viruses usually originate in animal hosts. Ebola and flu are examples.

What other coronaviruses have there been?

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals.

What are the symptoms of the Wuhan coronavirus?

The virus causes pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. If people are admitted to hospital, they may get support for their lungs and other organs as well as fluids. Recovery will depend on the strength of their immune system. Many of those who have died are known to have been already in poor health.

Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?

Human to human transmission has been confirmed by China’s national health commission. As of 27 January, the Chinese authorities had acknowledged more than 2,700 cases and 56 deaths. In the past week, the number of confirmed infections has more than tripled and cases have been found in 13 provinces, as well as the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin. The virus has also been confirmed outside China, in Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam. There have not been any confirmed cases in the UK at present, with the more than 70 people tested for the virus all proving negative. The actual number to have contracted the virus could be far higher as people with mild symptoms may not have been detected. Modelling by WHO experts at Imperial College London suggests there could be as many as 100,000 cases, with uncertainty putting the margins between 30,000 and 200,000.

How worried are the experts?

There were fears that the coronavirus might spread more widely during the week-long lunar new year holidays, which start on 24 January, when millions of Chinese travel home to celebrate, but the festivities have largely been cancelled and Wuhan and other Chinese cities are in lockdown.

At what point should you go to the doctor if you have a cough, say?

Unless you have recently travelled to China or been in contact with someone infected with the virus, then you should treat any cough or cold symptoms as normal. The NHS advises that there is generally no need to visit a doctor for a cough unless it is persistent or you are having other symptoms such as chest pain, difficulty breathing or you feel very unwell.

Should we panic?

No. The spread of the virus outside China is worrying but not an unexpected development. It increases the likelihood that the World Health Organization will declare the outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday evening. The key concerns are how transmissible this new coronavirus is between people and what proportion become severely ill and end up in hospital.

Sarah Boseley Health editor and Hannah Devlin

Hancock sought to ease public concern about the spread of the disease by stating that those returning to Britain would be quarantined and receive medical attention. “We are working hard to get British nationals back from Wuhan,” he tweeted. “Public safety is the top priority. Anyone who returns from Wuhan will be safely isolated for 14 days, with all necessary medical attention.”

There were fears that some of those registered for the flight may not be able to make it to the airport. Robert Dowling, from Nottingham, said his 22-year-old son in Wuhan was due to get on the flight but lived on the other side of the city and, with Wuhan in lockdown, had no means of travel.

He said the Foreign Office was not helping Britons with their travel through Wuhan. “On the group chat [on social media between British nationals in Wuhan] this is a constant theme, with it sounds like quite a number of them not at all sure how they are going to get to the airport,” he said.

Nick House, a British national living in Wuhan with his Indonesian wife and two British children, told Sky News: “The man on the other end of the phone said: ‘Yes, you are on the list but unfortunately your wife probably won’t be able to get on the plane because she doesn’t have a visa at the moment.’ I won’t leave without my wife, so essentially the government are leaving three British people here for the sake of one seat on a plane.”

Related: How can UK citizens leave Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak?

On the question of the treatment of dual nationals, the prime minister’s press secretary said: “Our priority is to keep British nationals and their families together and we have urgently raised this with the Chinese authorities including through the foreign secretary speaking to his counterpart yesterday. It is Chinese policy that those with Chinese dual or mono-nationality cannot leave Wuhan through an assisted flight.”

The DHSC refused to comment on what legal powers the government might use to compel people to stay in isolation. Legislation allows local authorities to apply for orders to make people enter isolation to prevent the spread of disease.

Mark Harris, a professor of virology at the University of Leeds, broadly backed the quarantine strategy. “The plans for an organised quarantine of people evacuated from Wuhan makes much more sense than a proposal that people would quarantine themselves,” he said.

“There is now very good scientific evidence that the incubation period before symptoms appear can be as long as 14 days. In addition, there is some limited evidence of spread from people who are not yet showing symptoms. Both of these issues highlight the need for quarantine.”

Virgin Atlantic and Chinese carriers continued to operate flights to and from mainland China despite British Airways’ move to suspend planes in the wake of government travel advice.

The coronavirus is believed to have emerged from wild animals sold for food in the Wuhan seafood market, which has been closed. It has a fatality rate of about 2% and symptoms include a sore throat, fever and breathing difficulties.

Additional reporting by Kate Proctor and Damien Gayle.