February 4, 2020

expert reaction to Foreign Office advising British nationals in China to leave the country if they can, in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak

The UK Foreign Office has advised all British nationals in China to leave the country if they can, in light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Dr Nathalie MacDermott, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer, King’s College London (KCL), said:

“The UK government’s first priority is to the safety of its citizens. Given the increasing number of cases of 2019-nCoV in China and the spread to multiple large cities within China, which have now also demonstrated increasing numbers of cases and localised transmission within those cities, this advice is prudent. The advice is not an indicator of a change in what we understand of the virus or its virulence, it is a decision made on the proportionate risk to British citizens in light of the scale of the epidemic. While the risk to British citizens in China remains low, the continued spread of the virus in large cities increases the chances of infection and potentially the risk of implementation of transport restrictions in the future.”

Prof Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology, University of Nottingham, said:

“Clearly the government is getting concerned about the increasing number and spread of the novel coronavirus within China and the risk that this might pose to UK residents living or planning to visit China.”

“This is a judgement call – and not an easy one to make. China covers a vast area and is a highly populated place, so absolute numbers of confirmed infections compared to the total number of people living in China is tiny so the overall risk of becoming infected, at least in the short-term is relatively small. But this outbreak is moving at a pace and the fact that the outbreak has spread to all regions of China means that everyone in that country is at risk – albeit a small risk.”

Dr Andrew Freedman, Reader in Infectious Diseases / Hon. Consultant Physician, Cardiff University, said:

“This seems like sensible advice in the face of the rapidly spreading epidemic of nCov infections throughout mainland China.  There is a small risk that returning UK nationals will have already contracted the virus and it will be essential for them to follow the already published advice about what to do if they become unwell after arriving back in the UK.”

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:

“This move will probably be reassuring to UK citizens in China. There may be significant local uncertainty as to how much risk there is of being exposed to this new coronavirus, and so it seems reasonable to makes attempts to support their removal from the country, until the spread of cases within China has reduced.”

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia (UEA), said:

“The new advice from the Foreign Office against all but essential travel to the rest of mainland China and for expats to return home is not surprising given the reports of cases throughout the country. However, it should be noted that this is advice and not a legal restriction. The World Health Organization still says ‘WHO advises against the application of any restrictions of international traffic based on the information currently available on this event’. Given that the new advice is not an absolute restriction, the UKs position does not conflict with that of the WHO.

“It is still not yet possible to know how the outbreak will develop over the coming weeks and months but the current risks to British Nationals resident in most of mainland China remains low. Whether this will remain the case is unclear. However, one key issue is if self-sustaining spread in other parts of China leads to internal lockdown in other cities and regions. With this possibility the new advice is appropriate, at least for people who would not wish to stay in the country when there is a risk that the control measures implemented in Wuhan may be used elsewhere.

“If this current epidemic does develop into a pandemic with outbreaks in multiple countries then travel restrictions will become increasingly difficult to implement and less relevant towards the control of international spread.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/wuhan-coronavirus/

Declared interests

None received.