it is eerily quiet in the town of Castle
pasta Lego the school in this northern
Italian town is closed the bakery will
only let people in for two time
residents outside this pharmacy have to
wait this is in the heart of the Italian
outbreak of covered 19 in the Lombardy
and Veneto region as yet they don't know
where the original case came from and
they don't know why Italy's numbers are
so much higher than the rest of Europe
the Prime Minister himself has
acknowledged a degree of confusion and
the handling of this we don't have
regional frontiers so it is clear that
in a coordinated handling of the
situation we must have measures that are
more effective and presented in a
rational way otherwise it becomes
confusing because in different regions
but with similar conditions they receive
different instructions what experts do
believe is that Italy is likely to have
more cases than have as yet been
identified
so today UK travelers were told to self
isolate for 14 days even if they don't
have symptoms if they have been to the
lockdown areas of Italy and also the
most affected cities in South Korea all
of whom a province at the epicentre of
the epidemic and if they've traveled
anywhere in Iran and a few Fenton
northern Italy and develop symptoms self
isolates and call one one one yesterday
Austria was looking at closing its
borders France was advising people to
take their temperatures twice a day and
to use masks if they went out why are we
only doing this today
well you've got to follow the advice and
all the way through this we're balancing
the need to make sure that people take
the right and action to stop the spread
of the virus with the need to make sure
that those actions are proportionate so
you don't cause more harm for instance
with the impact of decisions that you
take so one example is on flights from
China I've had people in the past few
weeks saying to me why don't we just
stop all the flights from China the
Italians did that and now they have the
largest outbreak in Europe 36 countries
like China have now reported outbreaks
we cannot go out either front or back
there are police cars stationed at all
entrances these holidaymakers are in
quarantine and tenerife after a guest
fell ill with the virus in up to 80% of
cases the symptoms are mild so people
may not even know they have covered 19
making it all the harder to trace and
all the easier to spread but he has it
Iran's deputy Health Minister mopping
his sweating brow a press conference
yesterday a conference called to deny a
cover-up of covered 19 cases and this is
him today I'd like to inform you that I
have been infected with corona virus I
had a fever yesterday my first test was
positive last night and I have isolated
myself
president Hassan Rowhani on the other
hand says that enemies of Iran are
conspiring to shut down the country
through fear-mongering about the virus
yet there are genuine concerns amongst
world experts that the true scale of the
outbreak in Iran has not been identified
making it all the easier to spread to
neighboring countries especially those
with Wars and weak health systems
Victoria McDonald and one of those
travelers whose returned from Iran and
is now in self-isolation
is that very own John Snow year-long
with the cameraman and producer who
traveled with him of following
government guidance for those who've
recently returned from coronavirus
hotspots and will be staying at home for
the next two weeks I spoke to him just
before we came on air okay I'm in self
isolation as a result of having been to
Iran for the past four or five days and
and therefore not really supposed to
congregate with any crowds or go
anywhere where there may be you know
people so that means I'm sitting at home
for two weeks for two weeks how do you
feel
well actually I woke up this morning
feeling rather tired but that was from
the trip but we weren't actually
anywhere near where the main virus
outbreak has occurred
you look fine you say you've
feel fun you don't have a temperature
and yet here you are in your flat in
North London in self-isolation for two
weeks it must feel rather odd and I
wonder whether you feel worried at all
about what might be happening well to be
absolutely honest the enormity of the
prospect of 14 days hasn't really hit me
I mean I've been doing things to catch
up with the things that I needed to
catch up on having been in Iran and
orders to it and I haven't really had
time to work out how in fact I'm gonna
handle this I must admit that I'm not
very good with my own company I'm a very
gregarious character that's why I like
working Channel 4 News which is a big
you know happy home mostly happy team
and you know therefore it will be very
very strange and maybe if you call me
again in 14 days you'll find a head case
on your hands you'll be missing out soon
even if it's very mostly happy thank you
very much and stay well thanks joining
us now is dr. Rosalind eggo the
infectious and infectious disease model
at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine thanks very much for
coming on the program again Italy 10
deaths in a fairly small number of days
after only having reported an outbreak
of cases you know the weekend
I mean how worrying are those numbers in
a place like Italy well now that the now
that the cases have been found the
authorities they're going to be doing
their very best to try and track down
the contacts of cases and try and end
the chains of transmission that have
been happening there too in order to get
control of the epidemic right so that
they've contained these towns that are
affected we've also noticed in China
that containment seems to be working
because the number of infections are
going down is that is that fair to say
it's very it's difficult to ascribe you
know cause to effect but there have been
as you said very strong interventions in
China for over a month now and that it
does appear that the number of cases
have been falling and so that's good
evidence that it is possible to decrease
transmission of this virus and what
that's really done is but the rest of us
have a bit more time to prepare your
muddler so you're looking at projections
into the future yeah what are those
numbers I mean from from the
evidence so far and how this thing
spreads tell us about the numbers that
we can expect on this island it's really
very difficult to say at this point it
is too early the important thing for the
UK is to understand where the cases are
happening so far to understand what risk
they're at and to remember that so far
in the UK the cases that we've seen have
been brought in from other places as
people who travelled and there hasn't
been ongoing transmission from each of
those from those people and the public
health authorities in the UK are doing
their very best to keep that keep that
true for as long as possible so the fact
that the numbers of cases has not gone
up here since last week does that mean
that we're doing the right thing well we
just don't know what else is out there
it's very difficult to say what the
right thing and the wrong thing is
people are in the UK our public health
agencies are doing their very best to
prevent all more transmission from any
cases that do arrive when I speak to
scientists like they were they
constantly tell me is that what really
worries them about this virus is what
they don't know what don't we know yeah
there's quite a quite a few things we
don't know about the virus and some of
their times from when somebody gets in
fact infected to when they start being
infectious that's really important to
know because it impacts how easy it is
to control what we really need to get a
handle on at the moment is what we call
the pyramid of severity okay so this is
if you have a pyramid and at the bottom
you have cases that have very few
symptoms you have mild cases severe
symptoms and at the very top you have
deaths but right now we don't have a
handle on how wide that is right and
that will give us a much better
understanding of the projected impact
into the future and can we now say with
certainty that it is possible to pass
this disease on if you're not showing
any symptoms of haven't even tested
positive because there seem to be quite
a few cases like that there are some
indications that there's some early
indications that you can transmit around
the time that you begin showing symptoms
but this is very preliminary data and as
you say we need more we need more
information to understand that better
very briefly children don't seem to be
affected by it is that true
it's really difficult to say whether you
know exactly the role of children and so
that's something that needs further
study as a mega thank you very much
indeed for coming in