Coronavirus: UK declares virus serious threat, confirms another case

Britain on Monday declared coronavirus a serious and imminent threat to public health.

Britain’s health ministry said it had introduced new measures aimed at delaying or preventing further transmission of the virus.

“We are strengthening our regulations so we can keep individuals in supported isolation for their own safety and if public health professionals consider they may be at risk of spreading the virus to other members of the public,” a health ministry spokesman said.

Arrowe Park Hospital, near Liverpool in northern England, and Kents Hill Park, in Milton Keynes, have been designated as isolation facilities.

Meanwhile, a staff member at a British doctors’ practice in the southern English city of Brighton has tested positive for coronavirus, the BBC reports.

The County Oak Medical Centre has been temporarily closed down, the BBC reported. It did not cite sources.

Recently, health officials said a case of coronavirus had been identified in Brighton and they were working to prevent any further spread.

A message left at the medical centre’s phone says, “Unfortunately, the building has had to close due to an urgent operational health and safety reason.”

A British man who has not been identified tested positive for coronavirus in Brighton on February 6 after travelling to Singapore. He has since been taken to St. Thomas’s Hospital in London.

He stayed in a ski chalet in the French ski resort of Les Contamines-Montjoie where five British nationals and a child have been diagnosed with the virus.