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  • tonight will have a channel for new special on the issue that many of you have been worrying about the spread of the Corona virus.

  • There are many urgent questions.

  • How deadly is it?

  • How fast can it spread out of the best precautions?

  • Will we end up responding to it the way the China has done?

  • And how prepared are we in Britain?

  • Here is some of the answers Corona virus has come to Britain.

  • Is it here to stay?

  • Situation will get worse before it gets better.

  • A zoo authority scramble to contain an outbreak.

  • People are learning on the job.

  • This is an expected scenario.

  • Fear and frustration started spread on this island that public health England have really got to step up.

  • Health workers warned that the NHL's can't cope, as experts fear it could become a pandemic.

  • This virus is the one which probably concerns me the most.

  • Of everything I've worked on, we explore if Britain can coat, if it gets worse, people are trained to do this.

  • This is part of that job.

  • Dr.

  • Weir Thing is no longer just China's problem.

  • Wuhan is China's manufacturing powerhouse, its population bigger than London.

  • So Where is everybody?

  • This is ground zero for the virus.

  • In response, the Chinese government has kept 11 million people off the streets with at least 65,000 cases and rising.

  • Authorities here are taking no chances holding areas and pop up hospitals built in days from scratch to contain those infected.

  • But these facilities and their doctors of feeling the strain cut off from the rest of the world who hands inhabitants a screen for infection and monitored to prevent the virus has spread those who can't or won't comply with residents ordered to stay inside.

  • Life here is empty and airy.

  • Ben Cavanaugh has been documenting the shotgun, usually a very, very busy road.

  • Not for the foreseeable future.

  • Let's go home, Think Irish teacher, living in boo hand at the time, was evacuated with around 200 Britons.

  • He left China quarantine.

  • But not everyone has on the rapid spread of the virus has alarmed experts over just two months.

  • The virus, officially termed covered 19 has killed almost 1400 people in China, with almost 65,000 confirmed cases worldwide.

  • The only other deaths outside mainland China are in Hong Kong.

  • The Philippines and Japan.

  • It has spread to at least 25 countries across five continents.

  • And in the UK we now have nine confirmed cases.

  • Brighton in East Sussex Home toe Our first cluster five cases were confirmed here this week, all infected by so called super spreader.

  • A man called Steve.

  • At least one of these cases is a doctor at County Oak Medical Center.

  • Another worked in an Ian Worthing hospital and the fact that they were infected outside China.

  • As authorities concerned the detection off this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire.

  • Dealing with this disease is a marathon, not a sprint.

  • The situation will get worse before it gets better.

  • Very.

  • But everybody should be confident where a great country got a fantastic and it just got fantastic.

  • Doctors and advice on day should simply take the advice of the of the N.

  • H.

  • S.

  • The prime minister may be sounding characteristically upbeat, but the World Health Organization is still very cautious, desperately seeking precise answers to very pertinent questions.

  • What exactly is the mortality rate off this virus?

  • How fast and how far can it spread?

  • Are we facing another global pandemic, and then the area.

  • Images of Wuhan under lock down a glimpse of our future Here in Britain.

  • Local journalist Emily Walker is about to launch into the school, but this is no way should we go give our hands of washing for bar code three.

  • New virus from a distant country has spawned a new kind of fear and the dilemma.

  • What to tell Children and what not to tell them.

  • You just had a message from the school this morning to say the two families at the school looking, told by public health to self isolate.

  • They're advising us if we wish to keep our Georgian off it, but we unauthorized absence hold on.

  • So what does he have had a lot of messages from other parents.

  • This'll morning.

  • Everybody is kind of freaking out about whether to send her kids in or not.

  • Her son's school is just over the road from the closed Medical center, and details about what to do are in short supply.

  • Professor Sameer Begin, a Brighton counselor on the city's health board, is on of the few local officials prepared to go on the record in what feels like an information locked down.

  • All I'm saying is public health.

  • England have got to step up because they haven't.

  • And actually, I'm courting the HUD secretary who yesterday said there's an imminent danger to the public.

  • I think if the health secretary is saying that than public health thing that have really got to step up and be more open in their communications and their conversations with everybody.

  • Sameera is arguing with the boss at the council about how much information should be made public.

  • This morning.

  • We hear that parents were being told that they don't have to send their kids to a particular school and then get authorized absences for that.

  • No, that's that's crucial.

  • We have to challenge public health thing that they have actually mocked up Victor in here.

  • All right.

  • Okay, bye.

  • We're all in uncharted territory, and everyone is trying to work out the dividing line between precaution and panic.

  • Hugs.

  • Lori from the August I've written up a story which doesn't identify your Emily Walker is starting her work day at the Argus brightens local paper.

  • The journalists are trying to piece together details of a suspected case as they make their calls, they discover that lack of clear advice from the authorities is upsetting residents.

  • We keep getting these parents from schools and patients from medical centers freaking out.

  • Basically, I don't know whether to go to their doctors, do their school, whether they should be in contact people or not.

  • With a potentially deadly virus on your doorstep.

  • It's no surprise that people are concerned.

  • Reports suggest that at least eight out of the nine cases in Britain have only mild symptoms.

  • Public health England State that you have to be within two meters of someone for 15 minutes in order to be a risk.

  • So what should we be looking out for and who should we be worried about?

  • Typically, we see this virus causing cough or shortness of breath on because as inflammation, it can also cause a fever.

  • So those are the characteristic symptoms that we're looking at the most vulnerable people of people who have preexisting health conditions.

  • Andi, we're still really looking to see how we can identify.

  • There have been some reports that possibly people more instead of middle toe older age, are more vulnerable to more severe symptoms for Britain.

  • The next few weeks, a crucial how the virus spreads and how we respond could be a defining moment for us.

  • We make one of the global experts on modeling.

  • The spread of the virus is we're probably where Wu Han Waas at the beginning of December in terms of the sort of numbers of infections which have likely established themselves in the country.

  • What we're seeing is a very severe tip of the iceberg in the official case numbers.

  • Certainly what we know is there's been a huge demand of medical care, a lot of pneumonias, but the we think that really probably only represents 5% of cases or so Direct flights to in from Beijing and Shanghai have been canceled, but a Chinese national became the ninth case in Britain.

  • She developed symptoms Shortly after landing at Heathrow, we surveyed 100 workers from Britain's airports about what's being done to keep the virus act.

  • 87% told us that screening tests are not taking place on passengers arriving from countries with major outbreaks.

  • Their conclusion.

  • 96% believe that we're not keeping Britain's borders safe, so the question is how much infection has reached the country.

  • We think it's probably 23 times what's actually been detected.

  • Are there any doubts in your mind that this is now a global pandemic estimate we have at the moment is the start of a global pandemic of a new respiratory virus.

  • We've tracked how two Chinese tourists created a cluster of new patients in Singapore.

  • On these daily contacts can happen anywhere.

  • A guided tour takes them to a jewelry shop.

  • They talked to a few staff and sample medical oil's.

  • A saleswoman is infected later, her cleaner as well.

  • Then a second saleswoman, her husband on their six month old son, then the tour guide and her husband, then two more shopkeepers.

  • Nine new cases after just a few minutes of souvenir shop and latest estimates suggest that 60% off the world's entire population could contract covet 19 if it's not controlled.

  • Do you think that the infection rate of 60% off the population, which has been suggested by some of your colleagues is realistic for Britain, potentially given when we know a lot about how the sort of viruses spread?

  • We have lots of data from past epidemics, may influenza, given how transmissible this virus appears to be and the fact that at least all adults could be infected.

  • We have much less data and Children, then 60% is a reasonable figure for for the epidemic size within the 1st 12 months or so.

  • What we don't know at the moment is of everybody infected.

  • What proportion might die?

  • And what of the risk groups are?

  • Best estimate of the moment is that maybe 1% of people who get infected might die, and in a mortality rate of 1% that's 400,000 people.

  • Potentially, I would emphasize that at the moment, you know, putting numbers like 400,000 necessarily helpful because we have so little information.

  • Um, but it's often absurd number.

  • It's not an absurd number.

  • We have a reactive.

  • I would much prefer to be accused of overacting than under acting.

  • Let's put it that way on this virus is the one which probably concerns me the most of everything I've worked on.

  • But not everyone is convinced by the scary numbers Professor Sean Griffin's co chair the Hong Kong government's inquiry into the 2003 SARS epidemic.

  • That is an estimate, A top estimate it doesn't mean 60% of the world's population are going to get the disease.

  • The super spreader phenomenon is one that leads to difficulties in controlling the disease.

  • A CZ we saw with the case from Brighton.

  • The key question.

  • If predictions come to pass, can our health service really coat in Wuhan?

  • They built to hospitals in under two weeks, housing over 2000 patients elsewhere in China.

  • The authorities used drones to make sure citizens wear face masks in public.

  • So is this going to happen to us?

  • We're nowhere near that.

  • Yet for that, this play group in bright.

  • Despite the frantic cleaning, I probably am doing a little bit conscientiously today.

  • Must parents already avoiding notoriously germy crowds?

  • The numbers down?

  • Yeah, I think, Yeah.

  • I think the numbers will be a part of me.

  • Thought maybe we shouldn't have it today.

  • But it is a good service.

  • It is acceptance for the moms.

  • Really.

  • Even these ladies are trying to adjust.

  • Nobody.

  • We go buses and not going on the booth.

  • This is not a mask.

  • But when I went on a bus to pump it swells up to other people on the bus.

  • A moment of levity.

  • But how do the frontline medical workers feel?

  • We carried out an exclusive survey of over 500 front line health workers.

  • 96% told us that they believe the N HS isn't ready to deal with the major outbreak.

  • And 93% believe there isn't enough protection for N.

  • H s staff on the front line with 1700 doctors infected in China.

  • Medical workers here, maybe right toe.

  • But how Britain has coped with previous health emergencies helps us to understand how it might handle a large scale Corona virus.

  • I've break now.

  • This air ambulance crew threw themselves into the unknown in Salisbury from the deadly nerve agent Lava Chalk was found there two years ago.

  • Yeah, but you made it look like for us when we attended souls.

  • Briana Name's Bree.

  • We didn't even have a clue that there was a nerve agent involved.

  • And it's like, you know, when first responders now attend incidents where someone's got flu like symptoms again, they are going to be unaware if that is part of the Corona virus.

  • I think early communication with the attendant authorities is key on for public health.

  • England and other bodies to be open and honest about what is going on, what the attending clinicians will expect and if need be, toe have blood tests toe have you know, adult conversations about how we will be in the future or how we will be at that time.

  • Yeah, it's still too early to tell just how far and how wide this virus will spread with to front line health workers already infected.

  • The experts Fear Way may be heading into the unknown Corona virus has reached our shores were told that we're on the brink of a global pandemic that unchecked could infect 60% of the plant.

  • So is Britain ready?

  • We're in Brighton, the epicenter of the virus in this country.

  • In the newsroom of the local paper, the Argus, Lori has received a call from a person who may have caught the virus from another suspected case at work.

  • They were sent home immediately and told to stay in isolation.

  • You have been in contact with someone who may have Corona virus.

  • Okay.

  • Were you escorted or you're in a cab?

  • Was the cab driver wearing mosque?

  • You had a mask on the advice from the government for people who do develop symptoms is to stay inside and avoid contact with others.

  • But this has clearly been missed by some of the first person diagnosed in London.

  • Turned up at a hospital in an uber.

  • It's making taxi drivers nervous.

  • Yeah, of course.

  • Yeah, because he's quite dangerous thing.

  • You know, it's spreading, especially in broad and hope.

  • I, you know, fucking uber driver on, Uh, I can be so many different people every day, so obviously pretentious and worried, so I don't get it.

  • That's why I'm wearing mask and protecting myself and also other people as well.

  • Now the virus is here.

  • The focus is containment.

  • It's believed that is spread by a tiny droplets of saliva.

  • So the principal advice wash your hands a lot on exactly cutting edge.

  • We'll need something else.

  • So this is where we first start working on a vaccine.

  • It's the beginning of the story.

  • Here has been working with sequence, and it's introducing it into cells to check that it's expressed in the right way.

  • Professor Robin Shattuck's team at Imperial College, London, is working around the clock to make a vaccine.

  • We're really at the very beginning of the approach.

  • What's exciting is that we've been able to probably move faster than we have before because technology has really changed since the SARS epidemic.

  • For example, on DSO, we've compressed that process of developing a candidate vaccine from a period of many months to a few weeks, a few weeks.

  • So best case scenario, When is the earliest that we could have a vaccine?

  • Well, that's more challenging.

  • So we've come up with a candidate within a few weeks, but it's now in just started an animal testing.

  • The next stage will be to move it to human studies, which we hope to be able to do in the next month's thier earliest.

  • That any group in the world will get a vaccine available for the wider public would be early next year.

  • We may see that there's a second wave as we come back into winter next year on.

  • Then we may well need a vaccine, particularly if we see this could go global spread of this farce.

  • But in terms of the health and safety measures that people are adopting worldwide face mosques.

  • So the evidence for face masks in the General public is very limited.

  • In fact, there's no evidence to show that they have any effect whatsoever.

  • So if masks don't work, how do we stop a deadly spread Like in previous pandemics?

  • Nothing has yet come close to the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 which is estimated to have killed around 50 million people worldwide, with over 200,000 deaths in the U.

  • K.

  • As for seasonal flu, 17,000 people have died each year on average in England in the last five years.

  • But if estimates are correct, 23 times Maur could die of the Corona virus.

  • We've already had more deaths globally than the 774 who died from SARS between 2002 and 2004.

  • Viruses which pose the greatest threat globally of the ones which are mild enough to be effectively transmitted from around the world on DDE for sort of measures which rely on isolating cases not to be terribly effective, but after high enough mortality that the overall impact when the epidemic runs its course is high.

  • So can our health care system cope with what might be around the corner?

  • Our exclusive survey of over 500 front line N.

  • H s staff found that 88% believe there aren't adequate facilities such as isolation areas to cope with large numbers of suspected Corona virus cases and 81% Phil.

  • There has not been enough preparation for the Corona virus.

  • They told us I'm a pregnant GP.

  • I'm genuinely scared.

  • Patients get unreliable, inconsistent and potentially dangerous advice from 111 High risk patients are still being told to see their GP were being drowned and demand.

  • A patient rang because they had a cough and lived next door to a Chinese takeaway.

  • No briefing on must of hot to buy my own from screw fix nowhere to put patients in primary care other than shutting them in the toilet.

  • If there is a big outbreak of Corona virus patients who need a lot of care in hospital, they're gonna have to be difficult choices made.

  • We're going to have to think about what other things are going to need to be put back.

  • What surgery can be postponed, what outpatient appointments could be canceled on.

  • There's gonna be difficult decisions that we don't want to have to make.

  • But thehunt Tal's don't have the capacity because we've been stripped very much to the bank for the last few years.

  • We put the concerns from health workers to public health England.

  • But aren't you alarmed by these numbers?

  • Of course, those numbers are not where we will need to be.

  • What I'm saying is that we are in very early stages.

  • At the moment of dealing with novel coronavirus, we are making sure there's advice constantly going out hospitals across the country, the chief medical officer, the medical director of N, H S, England and others writing regular basis with updates the guidance.

  • There are extensive plans across both e n hs why the government systems, public health, England and others to deal with whatever the eventuality.

  • Maybe now that eventuality in the reasonable worst case scenario is not without its challenges.

  • And those challenges may be significant for the N.

  • H s, and it will be prepared and thinking about how to deal with those.

  • So I don't think we can say, you know, that this there won't be any difficulties if we do get into that scenario, should we be banning all direct flights from China and other affected areas well, what we do to make sure that every flight that comes to the UK from on area where there's concern about infection, the passengers get information that we that the pilot has to declare before they land.

  • As to whether there's anybody with illness on the flight on dhe, that their announcements made on the flight so that if anybody does return from China or one of the other countries of concern on, they do get symptoms and their phone is quickly and we can get them tested.

  • That's the most important thing for us to do at this stage.

  • What haunts the scientist is whether this could become another global pandemic, like the Spanish flu of 1918 which killed perhaps as many as 50 million people worldwide.

  • Now the world is much better and faster these days, a developing a vaccine, but it is also far more interconnected and mobile way will the Corona virus, four societies in Britain and elsewhere to behave in fundamentally different ways could be code.

tonight will have a channel for new special on the issue that many of you have been worrying about the spread of the Corona virus.

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