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One of the British citizens who tested positive for the coronavirus aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan has died.
Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:
“This is a very unfortunate reminder of why we are doing our utmost to slow the spread of this virus – whilst most people who become infected suffer only mild symptoms, in others this infection can result in serious illness and even death. Anyone infected can develop problems but we know that the most vulnerable are the elderly and people with other underlying diseases, like asthma or other lung diseases, heart disease or diabetes.”
Prof Christl Donnelly, University of Oxford and WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, Imperial College London, said:
“I was sad, but not surprised, to hear reports of the death of a UK citizen who had been a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The estimate from our work at Imperial College London (see report 4 here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news–wuhan-coronavirus/) is that about 1% of infections with the virus responsible for COVID-19 are fatal. Analysis of case data has indicated that patients are more likely to die of the disease if they are older and/or have certain comorbidities.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/
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