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It has been reported that one of the UK coronavirus cases is a student at the University of York.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, Senior Clinical Lecturer, University of Exeter, said:
“I don’t think the students and staff at the university need to worry too much. The university has been told the risk to them is low.
“Here in the UK we have well-practiced machinery for contact tracing and the authorities are very good at identifying close contacts. A close contact has been said by PHE as in this case meaning being in close proximity of two metres for 15 minutes. Even then, those who have been in close contact won’t necessarily get the infection.
“Going by the pattern of transmission of past coronaviruses it is most likely to be spread by droplets (i.e. from the sneezes and coughs of an infected person), however it is still early days and we need to learn more about this new virus.
“From what we know so far, it looks like most infections in young people are less likely to lead to severe disease than in older or unwell people.
“In situations like this, how contact tracing tends to work is that the authorities work out who the infected cases might have come into contact with, then work outwards in concentric circles from contacts to contacts of contacts, and use all manner of communications to find those contacts.
“The UK has great collaborative working arrangements in place, as part of their emergency preparedness plans – we invest quite a lot in nurturing and developing local resilience forums, which pays dividends in the event of an emergency.”
* https://www.york.ac.uk/alert/
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/wuhan-coronavirus/
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