short and to the point this is part of
the new updated public awareness
campaign against covered 19 hand-washing
is still at the forefront of the fight
against the virus every country has
their own version we found this one from
Vietnam however the message is put
across though it is becoming critical as
numbers are reducing and China they're
growing elsewhere today has seen the
biggest leap and covered 19 cases in the
UK so far and public health officials
are of course contact tracing but they
have also said that at least three of
the 32 new cases in England were passed
on here giving rise to fears that
community transmission is now taking
hold the four phases for dealing with
this outbreak are contained
that's where we are now delay research
and mitigate today the Prime Minister
was asked about the potential for
Parliament and MPs to spread the virus
and he appeared to suggest that we are
about to move from contain to delay the
chief medical officer and the chief
scientific adviser together with my own
friend the health sector will be saying
a little bit more in the next couple of
days about what we are going to do to
delay the advance of coronavirus we're
still at the containment stage she will
understand the distinction that the
government is is making when we come to
the delay phase as she'll be hearing a
lot more detail about what we propose to
do with large gatherings and places such
as Parliament it's not just large
gatherings a small study following the
chalette outbreak in France has found
that meals at home and and restaurants
could be risky for example transitionary
chalet in france meal in in hong kong
and we gathered about nine of these
events and tried to look at the risk and
an estimated in these situations about
35 percent of the contacts of the case
had it subsequently become infected
there is a lot of a lot of times mission
happening each case on average is
probably infecting two or three others
so if you think of the average person's
number of contacts that suggests there
may be a fairly
high-risk per contact for that amount
transmission to subsequently occur the
crux of the public health message is
that everyone must play their part this
has led to a run on hand gels this
company Linko care has just received
orders for 1 million bottles and that's
likely to increase in the meantime a
spot check on four pharmacies today
found the shelves empty and what about
face masks the chief medical officer has
said that wearing them has almost no
effect on reducing the risk of
contracting the illness today in Italy
the police raided a warehouse where
masks and disinfectants are being sold
online at hugely marked up prices making
money in the face of a disaster and
Italy is in the midst of a crisis
they've had more than 3,000 cases and
today they announced that schools across
the country will be closed until March
the 15th I know this decision will have
an impact as schools minister I hope
pupils can return to school as soon as
possible and my commitment is to ensure
that the essential public service albeit
from a distance is provided to all our
students it's a measure other countries
have also taken but one the UK
government has so far resisted experts
say there are social consequences
parents not being able to work for
instance and it is still not clear how
the virus is affecting the young
victoria macdonald reporting well
earlier today I spoke to dr. Bruce
Aylward from the World Health
Organization he we seen returned from
China where he co-led the WH omission on
covered 19 I started by asking him about
Italy's decision to close universities
in schools in response to the virus
frankly they may know more than we're
seeing in the news and they may have
concerns that are causing them to move
that way generally what you want to be
doing though is looking at what are the
drivers of transmission in your
community what where where are people
getting infected and how and that should
then drive what you're doing but there
are many factors that affect the
decisions due to to close schools do you
think that we should be thinking about
closing schools in this country where
the rate of infection or the number
fection seems to be a lot lower than it
is in Italy well I think what you want
to be thinking about is are you doing
the basics and then you graduate things
up Matt so the first thing does the
whole population of you know the UK do
they understand what they're looking for
this is not a cold it's something
different do they understand that are
they hand-washing are they doing all
those preventive measures is that rapid
case isolation or identification piece
in place and the ability to find the
close contacts and quarantine them etc
and then as you move up through those
then you start looking at okay do we
need to suspend large gatherings because
of the way this virus is moving and no I
would agree with you it doesn't seem
like like you're there yet your boss the
head of the WUSA put out a mortality
rate number yesterday that had us all
gasping frankly three point four percent
mortality rate for those infected which
is quite a lot higher than the one
percent that we were kind of dealing
with roughly before hand explained that
number to us and why he's now made that
public well when you look at the numbers
in in in China there's different numbers
right and I think one of the things that
worried the director-general was that
people were cherry-picking the lowest
possible numbers and they were they were
under estimating what this disease could
actually do and the number that you
heard yesterday that's if you take from
the beginning of the outbreak
including Wuhan and the area's worst hit
right through to today and all of China
the number is over is over three and
what people often do is they just look
at those provinces outside of who Bay
and and and where Wuhan is and they
calculate from once people really knew
what they were doing and they say okay
at that point it was down around 1% or
under 1% but you know what the
director-general was highlighting was if
you don't get on this fast if you don't
know what you're doing if you're not
taking care of your older population
properly this is going to have worse
mortality than than than you're
expecting okay so when he went to China
what did you discover there that should
become a lesson to all of us all over
the world I think the critical things
that China did well were first of all
the population knew what it was
before they knew what this disease was
they knew where to go to get tested and
they could be isolated and taken care of
very very quickly people were part of
the solution they were the surveillance
system you weren't waiting for it to
walk into hospitals and in fact the
hospitals they had a very well-informed
population then they had planned the
capacity to be able to isolate these
commit cases and they planned the
capacity be able to find the close
contacts quarantine them and then take
care of them for the 14 days during
which five to ten percent of them would
become cases and the big takeaways are
those and what worries me always man is
everyone starts with like we can't do
what China did and I said well why not
and they said well we can't lock down a
whole city
I said well China didn't either that I
mean they have thousands and thousands
of cities they lock down a few which
where it had really gotten out of
control but still it's a much bigger
country as well I mean that they lock
down effectively 60 million people which
is virtually the whole population of the
UK can you seriously imagine this
government doing something similar in a
country like ours I would be seriously
surprised and and and frankly
disappointed if the country ever got
into a situation where they'd even have
to contemplate that and the great thing
you've seen that is that you know
remember this it's not a function of the
virus whether or not you get in a
situation like China's it's a function
of how you respond and what you're
seeing as a result of the work of public
health England the NHS etc is they're
fighting these cases fast they're
jumping on the transmission chains
they're getting them under control you
should never get in that situation
should never have to even contemplate it
there's a big debate about closing down
schools of course the Italians you know
said they would imminently do what's the
point of closing down schools of kids
according to the evidence are very
unlikely to get this we actually don't
know what happens with children in this
disease it appears that they're less
likely to get infected it appears that
they're less likely to get us sick but a
lot of that may be an artifact of the
fact that this happened in China at the
start of the Spring Festival because
remember the spring festival in China
all the schools are closed for two weeks
and then they extended them so we don't
really
No what would have happened if children
were exposed to big doses of this thing
in school environment would they have
gotten sicker we don't know probably not
in in my minor but would they have
carried the virus back to their families
and caused more outbreaks that way
quite possibly we simply don't know so
one of the things we're looking at in
places like Italy and and and others
that get infected are do haven't seen
any school clusters that might either
result in more sickness to kids or help
spread it so far the evidence is in
there and it's one more a you know piece
of the puzzle that we haven't got the
tools to study properly yet you soon
will but yeah okay just just to bring it
back to Britain we've just had the
numbers out I'm over 80 cases now in
this country it was 50 yesterday what
can you infer from that your cases are
increasing quite obviously it's hard to
infer from the number what we need to
know are they geographically clustered
and clustered in time and clustered
around certain events or are these just
popping up all over the country and it's
it's evidence of widespread transmission
that had been missed mild cases that
have been missed so the number itself
doesn't tell you anything or everything
what it may be telling you is the
population is way more aware they're
getting them much more fast and that
could be a very good sign you came back
from China ten days ago I gather why
don't you self isolating you isolate the
people who are the cases right so I'm
clearly not a case why do we know that
because you've been tested or yes
actually I have been tested I'm not a
case well I'm not I'm not ill let's say
the second thing is I'm not a
close-contact if anyone so I'm not
quarantine so isolation is what you do
for the case so the virus doesn't spread
quarantine is what you do for someone
who is a contact so if they get infected
they won't spread in the meantime but
but you're not isolating in the sense
that they have the virus I wasn't even
in sa a low-risk contact never came in
contact with any cases never came in
contact with any known contacts remember
I went into Wuhan 15 million people were
in apartment buildings I was in big
empty Boulevard by myself from our team
we think we came in less contact with
people who knew Han than anywhere I've
been since dr. Bruce thank you very much
for your time my pleasure thank you and
later in the program we'll have a
special report from inside
on the front line with medical staff we
see the scale of human endurance in the
fight to quell the virus or with
coronavirus expected to spread more
quickly in the weeks to come there are
serious concerns about the possibility
that low paid workers will feel obliged
to come to work while infected because
they can't afford not to be paid today
Boris Johnson announced that the
government will be changing the rules to
allow sick pay to be claimed from the
first day workers fall ill rather than
on the fourth day as at present at firm
Angie reports the reality of becoming
unwell on the low wage has long been a
hidden problem in Britain one that the
fears around corona virus is now
exposing last night Channel 4 News
highlighted how contract workers in the
NHS like cleaners have often been
reluctant to stay at home when sick
because of the financial impact one time
a patient asked me why did I come to
work sick I had to explain unfortunately
we're not paid if we stay at home and I
can't afford that being on minimum wage
today the Prime Minister announced
emergency laws meaning all employees
self isolating because of coronavirus
will now be entitled to statutory sick
pay from the first day they're off so I
can today announce that the health
secretary will bring forward as part of
our emergency coronavirus legislation
measures to allow the payment of
statutory sick pay from the very first
day you are sick instead of four days
under the current rules this is only a
temporary measure but it's employers who
bear the cost of it so small businesses
may now demand financial support from
the government and there are many
workers in Britain who won't be entitled
to it at all they're self-employed and
some of those on zero-hour contracts the
government's directing those people to
claiming universal credit so a universal
credit you've got the five-week waits
which is now notorious and that is no
good and if you are at home and being
told to self isolate for two weeks or
more without food maybe without some of
the appliances that you need to be able
to store food at home for a long times
like freezers these are really
vulnerable people
we're telling them to wait five weeks
you know we know universal credit isn't
working and needs to be reviewed so
putting people into a system that is
broken isn't going to do them any good
at all
the government says it will look at
issues around Universal Credit and
claimants can apply for an advance from
day one but trade unions argue today's
emergency legislation doesn't go far
enough as statutory sick pay is too low
at 94 pounds and 25 pence a week
the proportion of salary that statutory
sick pay covers in the UK is amongst the
lowest in Europe three sample Luxembourg
covers a hundred percent of employees
salaries but the UK a covers just 20
percent of the national average wage
that's beaten only by Malta which covers
19 percent with officials estimating a
fifth of Britain's workforce could be
sick at the peak of a corona virus
epidemic there are urgent questions
around how both employers and employees
will cope financially but in the longer
term we may also need to ask if our
country's sick pay system really
protects the most vulnerable well
joining me now is Mike cherry who's the
national chairman of the Federation of
small businesses and the TEC general
secretary Frances O'Grady
once already first you've been pushing
for workers to be paid from day one of
going off sick you happy with this
announcement that well this is a an
important step forward but of course the
problem is we're still only talking
about 94 pounds
a week in terms of statutory sick pay so
people still have bills to pay rent to
pay 94 pounds isn't going to cover it
and of course we've still got two
million people very often working in
public facing jobs in hospitality in
retail you don't earn enough to qualify
for statutory sick pay so we've been
calling freelancers there are directors
particularly zero-hours gig hours gig
economy workers but women and low paid
workers in general who are missing out
so you want to be extended we think all
workers should be entitled to proper
sick pay let me put that to you Mike
cherry do you think that this offer is
sort of a first installment should be
extended to freelancers another worker
first and foremost you'd need to
recognize that they self-employed don't
get sick by at the moment at all at the
moment so they're obviously working for
themselves they earn their own money and
they're not entitled to the benefits
that others are pay for them well that's
a question you've got to ask government
we can't answer that one Whitney of them
urge that of what we would urge is
government to revisit the point about
statutory sick pay that small employers
were cut out of that being able to
reclaim that against their wages and
salaries and national insurance and put
that back in place that is a fundamental
around affordability but also we would
be urging any business to look at FS B's
website there is all the information
there that you need you need to be
looking at business continuity plans you
need to be looking at your insurance and
we are asking government HMRC in
particular to give time to pay another
chance to support small businesses who
just don't have the money on all of this
just to pin you down on whether this
should be extended or not employers
currently pay satury sick pay would you
like that pay this offer today to be
extended to the other workers that
francis agretti was talking about
government has got to decide whether it
can support all employers in the way
that we are asking for if they decide
that there is money available I think at
the moment they government should pay
the bill rather than the employee know
what government is saying is that you
should apply for universal credit I'm
not sure that's the right answer
and I think there's going to be more
involvement on this on access to finance
on HMRC making sure that they give
extended time to pay on these statutory
payments that small businesses make
Frank cigarette II should government be
picking up a bill in these emergency
measures or is it right that businesses
are as I think is the implication of
today's announcement I think one of our
big concerns is that many of the
so-called self-employed are put onto
self-employed contracts by employers
precisely to avoid paying sick pay so
that's one big area of concern but let
me just get him to respond to that is
that true well FSP supports the genuine
self-employed who just don't have the
option of being able to get statutory
sick pay falls
they need more support but when you've
got these huge problems in the labor
market laid bare that we have this
two-tier labor market system where
particularly low paid and insecure
workers have so few rights it shouldn't
take a pandemic to for us all to realize
and the government to act and reform our
sick payrolls so that everybody's do you
want the day one sick made we made
payment permanent absolutely and it
should be there for all workers do you
agree with that they leave there's a
cost implication and there's
affordability around that at the moment
it's the right thing to be doing given
the circumstances we're in but when you
say there's a cost implication you
believe the government should be digging
into its pockets the general taxpayer
rather than looking for business it
comes back to affordability at the end
of the day it is the right thing to do
at the moment small businesses as I say
have been excluded from being able to
recover the statutory sick against the
National Insurance Contributions that
has to be reversed I think the problem
is the balance of power has gone
completely wrong and all the risk now
feels like it's on the shoulders of
those lowest paid workers not just for
sick pay by the way but for pensions too
is this an opportunity to not just over
address that imbalance as you put it but
is it also a chance to overhaul the way
we work more home working what do you Bo
think on that we're very Pro positive
flexibility for workers so when it's
properly agreed and we're you know
workers wanted it's fantastic to be able
to have that kind of flexibility so it
needs to be a two-way street there are
always going to be requirements for more
people to be working from home we're
seeing more self-employed setting up
from home clearly in the current
circumstances more are going to be asked
to work from home and it's only right
that they be paid appropriately in that
situation but what we can't have is
contract cleaners on the end of a
telephone waiting to be called in for a
shift and if it's cancelled not
compensated that's the kind of
flexibility that I think is giving
Britain a bad name and that we need to
address when you look at what's happened
in Italy with schools being closed for
two weeks and you know the sort of
theory this could happen here
is there a danger in your view that some
of these measures are in danger of
causing some pretty Castro 'fuck
economic consequences clearly there's
already an economic consequence when
schools are shut when parents have to
take time away from work to look after
kids back at home this is only going to
exacerbate that so employers being able
to support more of their employees to
work from home is an absolute must I
think as we take this one forward for
the self-employed the biggest worry is
that they're not going to get the work
coming in in any case and they need
additional support school closures where
do you stand on that thing we're going
to have to take this step by step but
again what I do know is that if schools
do closed there are large numbers of
workers who only get the statutory
minimum of unpaid emergency leave so
again we're going to have to have the
conversation and proper consultation I
think with both business and the unions
about how we handle this in a way that
doesn't end up with ordinary families
paying the price