Boris Johnson to unveil emergency action plan to tackle spread of COVID-19

The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has warned today that Coronavirus is “likely” to spread in the days and weeks ahead. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has said that it is now “inevitable” that the virus will spread throughout the UK and “become endemic” in the near future.

The government will publish its emergency action strategy tomorrow for dealing with the spread of the virus. They will also pass emergency legislation in Parliament to give the government the temporary and extraordinary powers it needs to carry out these emergency measures.

Speaking after he had held a special COBRA meeting on how the UK will handle the mounting global health crisis, Johnson announced that “we’ve been making every possible preparation” and sought to reassure the public that “this country is very, very well prepared.” He also announced that his government has agreed an emergency action plan for tackling the spread of COVID-19.

The Prime Minister also expanded upon the government’s advice from last week, saying that “the most useful” thing people can do to stem the spread of the virus is to make sure they wash hands thoroughly. At this stage, the government is urging that it is “very important” that the public should “go about business as usual”.

The Department of Health has also announced that a “war room” is being created to spearhead a public information campaign and provide continual updates on the virus.

The government’s strategy, which is going to be published tomorrow, will of consist of a four phase plan: Contain, Delay, Research, Mitigate.

Phase one (Contain), which the UK is currently experiencing, will involve patients being isolated and their contacts traced in order to prevent the disease from spreading.

In phase two (Delay), when the spread of coronavirus has exceeded containment strategies, the government will take measures to close large public events and public places – such as schools – in order to stem the spread.

In phase three (Research), the government will be investing significant amounts of money into research designed to produce a vaccine and palliative treatments.

In phase four (Mitigation), there will be outlines for how to minimise the damage caused by a coronavirus endemic.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Surgeon, who was involved with the government meetings alongside other senior representatives from the UK’s devolved assemblies, elaborated on what the government strategy means in the immediate future.

“The purpose of the delay phase is to slow down the spread of the infection”, the First Minister said. She added that it was during this phase – and not the “contain phase” in which the UK is currently considered to be at present – that any “decisions about the cancellation, for example, of large scale events will be handled.”

The government’s strategy echoes the official advice provided by Professor Paul Cosford, Emeritus Medical Director of Public Health England, who has told the BBC that widespread coronavirus transmission in the UK is now “highly likely”, and that the country should prepare for this outcome.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Cosford said: “At the moment the vast majority of cases we see in the UK are still linked to countries where there is more widespread infection, either in Italy or South-East Asia.”

He added: “It is true to say there is a small number now where it is much more difficult to find that link, and that is leading us to think that we may well see more widespread infection in the UK fairly soon. It could happen in the next few days for it could take a little longer.”

Coronavirus cases have now been confirmed across the UK – in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The number of confirmed cases rose by more than 50% on Sunday to 36, including a second person who has contracted the virus from inside the UK itself. There are now 40 cases.

The difficulty in tracing and linking cases which have emerged within the UK has caused public health professionals to fear that the spread of the disease could be more advanced than the number of recorded cases would suggest.

As it stands, the UK’s number of recorded cases is still nowhere near as bad as in South Korea and Italy, which now have over 4,000 and 1,700 recorded cases respectively.

Alarmed by the rise in recorded case numbers in Italy, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has raised the risk level posed by the virus in the European Union from “moderate” to “high”.

The number of deaths in Iran, a country outside of South-East Asia which has been particularly hard hit, may have reached as many as 210. The British Foreign Office has announced its intention to withdraw all secondary and non-essential staff as well as their families from the embassy in Tehran.

The World Health Organisation’s latest figures on the human impact of coronavirus reveal that the total number of COVID-19 cases reported globally to date stands at 89, 779. Of these cases, 3,069 people have died and 45, 512 have made a full recovery.