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The department of health has confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus in England.
Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia, said:
“The report of two confirmed cases of 2019 nCoV in England has raised a number of issues in the media about how this may pose a risk to other people in the UK and how Public Health England are likely to be identifying contacts and advising them accordingly.
“It is still too early in the outbreak to be absolutely sure about the exact risks of person to person transmission and in what contexts such transmission will occur. Nevertheless, it is likely that person-to-person transmission does require close or prolonged contact.
“The Department of Health have said that they are undertaking contract tracing, but it is not yet fully clear what steps are being taken to identify and contact possible contacts and just as importantly reassure those people who are worried that they may have been in contact. Latest statements from DH indicate that they define a close contact as someone who has been within 2 meters of a case for at least 15 minutes. This is a sensible definition and is similar to what has been used for several years for defining close contacts in cases of chickenpox, for example. It is likely that for most cases there will be few people who actually fall within this definition and so the number of people who are at risk will be small.
“The probability that this event will lead to person to person spread is still low. On the other hand, there will undoubtedly be many people who remain concerned about themselves and their family. The large majority of those people will not have been exposed and it would be helpful if consideration is given to how these people can be rapidly reassured.”
Prof William Keevil, Professor of Environmental Healthcare, University of Southampton, said:
“This was not unexpected. It is encouraging that the UK cases have been detected, showing the new molecular test methods and surveillance protocols are working. With continued vigilance then the numbers of cases can be kept low, especially since travel to China is now restricted. Very little has been released so far about the family, whether they returned from China recently or had contact with someone who had not been showing symptoms on return from China.
“The UK is well prepared for this sort of potential outbreak and has excellent specialist treatment centres. Infection control involves good surveillance and containment control advice for the general public who are most at risk (i.e. those having coming back from Wuhan and other affected areas).
“WHO finally declared this a global emergency, quite rightly because Wuhan coronavirus is a new virus which binds to the same lung cell receptor, ACE2, as SARS and has a higher reproductive number R0, as predicted from initial case studies and computer modelling. There is also some suggestion that infection might be able to be spread from infected people showing no symptoms, which now appears have happened in several well described cases in travellers from China going to other countries. This makes identifying, quarantining and treating patients without symptoms but who may be infectious much more difficult. Fortunately, the death rate is much lower than SARS but there is always the risk of a future mutation changing its virulence.”
Prof Martin Hibberd, Professor of Emerging Infectious Disease, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:
“The announcement of UK cases shows that the UK has efficient detection systems in place and will no doubt look after these individuals well, while keeping the chances of transmission to others extremely low.
“The worry is that there may be other countries that are less prepared, and that the virus may become more widespread worldwide – if that were to happen, even the UK systems would possibly struggle to be able to check every possible suspect, especially if it turns out to have mild symptoms, and community spread may become possible in that potential future scenario, as happened with the pandemic Influenza in 2009 – BUT we are not there yet.”
Dr Bharat Pankhania, Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Exeter Medical School, said:
“It’s no surprise at all that we have cases in the UK. As the virus has now spread to remote parts of the world, it was inevitable. It’s really positive that the cases have been identified. That means they can be isolated, and the authorities can work to identify both the source and other people they have been in close contact with who may be harbouring the virus, to ensure they isolate themselves and don’t risk spreading infection.
“Although we don’t yet know whether the two relatives picked up the virus from overseas, we can expect further imported cases in the UK which may not be linked with this case, as the virus is now so widespread globally. However, we need to keep perspective. We have very robust procedures in place. The cases will be isolated and any healthcare workers looking after them will be very diligent in wearing suits and masks to ensure they don’t get infected or spread the virus further. In the UK we are very privileged to have a population in general good health, as well as the infrastructure, expertise and equipment to control this in a highly professional manner. As far as we know to date, the virus spreads through large droplets, so only to people in close contact with the cases, and not all of those will become infected. People should continue to follow the advice of Public Health England.”
Prof Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London, said:
“It’s no surprise at all to have cases in the UK. We presume that this is not evidence of onward transmission within the UK; it shows that our detection systems are working well. We hope that those with the infection recover quickly and return to full health.”
Prof Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh, said:
“It is not surprising that we now have two confirmed cases in the UK as we live in a global world. But this is also no reason to panic or alarm. The risk to the public is still low to moderate – with a higher chance of catching seasonal flu and other winter bugs. This is still primarily a Chinese emergency as 99% of cases have been in China and all deaths have been in China.”
Dr John Tregoning, Reader in Respiratory Infections, Imperial College London, said:
“Given the global spread of nCoV-2019, it is not surprising that cases have been detected in the UK. It is most likely to have been imported, but we cannot say for sure. The NHS and PHE are well prepared to deal with this situation. That the cases have been detected shows the systems in place by PHE are working.”
Prof Sheila Bird, Honorary Professorship at Edinburgh University’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and formerly Programme Leader at MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, said:
“UK’s first coronavirus cases should be subject to household transmission surveillance (if UK residents, e.g. as per WHO protocol) and, as necessary, to wider contact-tracing; and quarantine of contacts, if feasible. The likelihood of developing clinical symptoms may be greater in people who have not historically be exposed to coronaviruses and so establishing the transmission and severity-spectrum of disease outwith China’s Wuhan province is something that other countries can do collaboratively to mirror China’s major effort.
“Assuming that the above measures are in hand, little could be learned from disclosing the demographic details of the first two cases. Such disclosure will, however, be informative if and when the UK’s number of symptomatic cases rises; or if there is international pooling of evidence on the initial cases in a number of countries.”
Prof Paul Digard, Chair of Virology, The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, said:
“This isn’t a surprise – it’s been obvious for a while that it was a case of when, not if the UK would see cases. It’s good that they’ve been detected, as this validates the systems that have been put in place to catch the infections. Early detection is crucial to try and hinder further spread.
“The information that hasn’t been released is almost more important – the underlying epidemiology of these two cases. If one (or both) family members have recently returned from China, then this would be a further example of what’s already been seen in other countries – an imported case or cases maybe with transmission between close family members. What would be more worrying would be if there wasn’t an obvious link between the two infected people and the epicentre in China, as this would signal wider circulation that hasn’t been detected yet – but we don’t know that yet from the information currently available.
Prof Ian Jones, Professor of Virology, University of Reading, said:
“With cases occurring in many countries it was unlikely the UK would escape coronavirus infection so the current cases were to some degree expected. As these cases have been caught early the possibility of further spread is minimal. For the majority of those who contract this virus the outcome will be a mild respiratory illness from which they will recover. It is a situation that can be managed and should not cause undue alarm.”
Prof Tom Solomon, Director, NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, University of Liverpool, said:
“It is no surprise that we now have cases of the novel coronavirus in the UK. Public health officials and doctors have been preparing for this for weeks now.
“The UK has all our systems in place, and are ready to care for these patients, as well as to look for any contacts who may need to be put in quarantine.
“There have been cases in Asia of more than one member of the same family being affected. It will be important to know whether both of these patients recently returned from an affected country, or whether one of them returned with the virus and has subsequently infected a family member.
“We have had experience before in the UK of containing the spread of highly infectious and dangerous respiratory pathogens, including most recently MERS coronavirus. So all the systems are in place to stop this becoming an outbreak in the UK.”
Dr Andrew Freedman, Reader in Infectious Diseases and Honorary Consultant Physician, Cardiff University, said:
“This comes as no surprise and it is likely that we will see further cases in the UK in the days to come. These are presumably people who have come to the UK from China, although it is, of course, possible that one of the family members could have caught it from the other one in the UK.
“Now that they have been diagnosed, they will presumably transferred to one of the designated centres where they will be cared for in strict isolation to prevent transmission to staff and other patients. Contact tracing will also be undertaken to identify others who might have been put at risk, so they can be monitored appropriately.
“The fact that these cases have been identified by the procedures in place is reassuring and there is no need for the public to be concerned about a wider outbreak.”
Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia, said:
“The report of the first two cases diagnosed positive for 2019-nCoV in the UK is not surprising and was almost inevitable. The Chief Medical Officer’s statement gives no information on where these two members of the same family acquired their infection. The two cases are members of the same family but no information has been released about whether both cases will have been infected simultaneously or whether one would have passed the infection to the other.
“The NHS is well able to nurse people with this novel coronavirus as it has successfully and safely managed a number of cases of both SARS and MERS in the past. With the information available it is not possible to judge what risk if any there may be of spread within the community.”
Prof John Edmunds, Professor in the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:
“This event, whilst unwelcome, is not surprising. However, the UK authorities have been preparing for this for some time, and it seems as if appropriate measures are being taken to limit onward spread.”
Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:
“The UK cases are unsurprising to see. Given the spread to other European and North American countries, it was really only a matter of time until the UK ended up with confirmed cases.
“Hopefully, as seen elsewhere, the case numbers will be very limited. The key concern will be if there is significant human to human transmission.”
* https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cmo-confirms-cases-of-coronavirus-in-england
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/wuhan-coronavirus/
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