four more cases of coronavirus have been
reported in england bringing the total
number in the UK to eight they're all
known to have come into contact with a
previously confirmed UK case it's
believed to have come from a British
businessman who went to a conference in
Singapore from there he went skiing in
Lake on tammany mantra in the French
Alps where he came into contact with
these new cases the businessman then
travelled to Brighton where he became
unwell he was transferred to London for
treatment the new cases announced this
morning were also taken from Brighton to
London over the weekend in order to
receive specialist care it comes as the
government introduces new powers to deal
with the spread of coronavirus declaring
it a serious and imminent threat to
public health under new measures the
Department of Health says people with
coronavirus can now be forcibly
quarantined and will not be free to
leave our health correspondent Philippa
Roxby is here lots of developments to
talk through Philip er I can see you've
scrawled on the page in front of you a
diagram linking all the different cases
so just talk us through the latest
developments yes well up until this
morning we knew that for there were for
UK cases of coronavirus in the UK the to
the student in York and a relative they
were both Chinese nationals there was
this other man in Brighton who had come
via Singapore he'd been diagnosed and
another contact of his who'd also caught
it in France and this morning we
realized there's another four cases who
are all linked to the ski chalet in the
Alps where the man from Brighton was was
holidaying for a few days so that's been
passed on there and those four new cases
have returned to the UK so there's now
eight in total he's being dubbed a super
spreader yes that is that that's a
difficult term we don't quite know what
that means as yet it's certainly true
that he has he is linked to five of
these cases which seems quite a large
number but of course he was in very
close contact with people on holiday in
a chalet and when that happens there is
a lot of opportunity for cough droplets
to be passed around and that's obviously
where the virus infected other people
but this time super spreader is is
slightly unhelpful at
points because it just happens to be a
highly transmissible virus and these
other people are very in close proximity
to him so what's the latest on
quarantine because new powers have been
brought in that will mean that somebody
who is suspected of potentially having
the virus will be able to be forcibly
quarantined and this came in because one
person under quarantine decided that
they didn't want to stay yes it's
reported that somebody who flew back on
a British flight from Wuhan in China
which is where this virus originated
wasn't happy about being quarantined the
governments have asked people to sign a
contract before they got on those
flights to make sure they were happy
about being in isolation for 14 days but
of course somebody obviously decided
they weren't too happy about that and
the government have had to up their
powers in order to enforce that
quarantine for the full two weeks and
that's in order to stop the risk of the
virus being spread any further I mean
that the case of the businessman who has
been treated now in a hospital in London
himself indicates obviously the chain of
somebody who has the virus but may be
unaware spreading it as they go how
widespread is the quarantine in this
country currently there are two
particular facilities which have been
used one in Milton Keynes the other in
the world
where people are being quarantined there
are also specialist hospitals doctored
around the UK some a couple in Scotland
some in England as well in Newcastle and
in London which were specially prepared
to treat people with these very
infectious diseases they know exactly
what they're doing and how many are in
quarantine and how wide does the net go
in terms of putting people into quand
we're talking several hundred now I
believe at the latest count and there
will be people all the time who are
worried about their health who may have
travelled back from other parts of Asia
not Nestle China and will may have
symptoms even very mild symptoms and the
government are saying that the right
thing to do is to be to be cautious to
phone NHS one-one-one not to go into
your GP surgery but to alert somebody
via NHS one-one-one and they can be
treated picked up thank you very much