Coronavirus evacuation: Brits in infection epicentre to fly home at 9pm tonight, Foreign Office confirms

Brits at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in China will fly home tonight, the foreign secretary has confirmed.

They will fly at around 9pm tonight GMT, which is 5am on Friday morning local time in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated and the majority of cases have been found.

There had been speculation they would return earlier on Thursday, though permission was not granted to do so.

Some 56 million people across China are on lock down to stop the virus' spread.

However, the Chinese government has agreed to allow Brits to be evacuated, following similar departures of US and Japanese nationals.

Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab said: "We are pleased to have confirmation from the Chinese authorities that the evacuation flight from Wuhan airport to the UK can depart at 0500 local time on Friday 31 January.”

“The safety and security of British nationals is our top priority. Our Embassy in Beijing and consular teams remain in close contact with British nationals in the region to ensure they have the latest information they need.”

Coronavirus - In pictures

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This morning health chiefs sounded the alarm over the virus spreading “very fast”. With the official death toll from the virus hitting 170, and the number of those infected 7,711, the World Health Organisation’s emergency committee was reconvening today to decide whether the virus should be declared a global emergency.

As the crisis grew:

  • British Airways cancelled all its flights to mainland China for a month, though flights to Hong Kong were unaffected.
  • A Scottish government source said: “It is highly likely we will have a positive case of coronavirus in Scotland in the coming days.” So far 130 tests carried out in the UK have been negative.
  • Some 6,000 people are being kept on board Italian cruise ship Costa Smeralda moored at Civitavecchia, north of Rome, as coronavirus tests are carried out on a middle-aged Chinese couple, a spokesman for the Costa Crociere cruise company said.
  • Russia temporarily stopped issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals in response to the outbreak, with the Czech Republic also reported to have halted the issuance of visas to Chinese citizens.
  • India and the Philippines reported their first cases.
  • Demand for face masks in the UK was rising, with packs of surgical face masks sold out on Boots’s website.
  • The US government was laying on extra evacuation flights from Wuhan within days.
  • The FTSE 100 and other European and Asian stock markets fell as it was confirmed that the virus has now reached every region of China, where the vast bulk of cases have been reported.

Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told Sky News: “This is a very worrying situation now — it looks like this virus has spread very fast.

“It looks like it has spread pretty widely. It may be very hard to contain. We have to do everything we can to slow this one down.”

Medical staff in protective suits treat a patient with pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University
REUTERS

With evidence suggesting it is taking off “much more sharply” than the 2002/03 Sars outbreak, Professor Openshaw stressed the big concern was how it would spread in less developed parts of the world, including highly-populated areas, where there is little medical care.

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director at the WHO health emergencies programme, said the decision to reconvene was due to the increasing number of cases and evidence of person-to-person transmission of the virus.

“The whole world needs to be on alert now, the whole world needs to take action and be ready for any cases that come, either from the original epicentre or from other epicentres that become established.”

Members of the Thai Airways crew prepare themselves before disinfecting the cabin of an aircraft at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport
REUTERS

Scientists believe the infection is likely to arrive in the UK and an analysis of international air travel suggested London is the European city most at risk of an outbreak.

Coronavirus infections have been reported in at least 16 other countries, including France and Germany, with 105 confirmed cases, but no deaths have occurred outside China.

The number of cases has surpassed the 5,327 diagnoses of Sars in China in 2002/03, but the death toll so far is lower than the 348 people who died

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