Coronavirus 'worst public health crisis for a generation': Boris Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday declared the coronavirus pandemic as the "worst public health crisis for a generation", as he announced that the UK would be moving to the next level of its fightback strategy to delay the peak of the virus outbreak to the warmer months.

After he chaired an emergency meeting of the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBRA) at Downing Street in London, Johnson announced that everyone with flu-like symptoms including a persistent cough or high fever must now self-isolate at home for the next seven days.

He said that the scientific advice was not to shut down schools at this stage because it could do more harm than good, but that decision would remain under constant review.

“This is the worst public health crisis for a generation,” said Johnson.

"Some people compare it to seasonal flu, alas that is not right. Owing to the lack of immunity, this disease is more dangerous," Johnson said, as he made a direct appeal to older people to take extra care and repeated his plea for thorough hand-washing.

From Friday, all school trips abroad will be banned, and older people and those with pre-existing health conditions have been told not to go on cruises.

Johnson said he wanted to level with the country and admitted that many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time as a result of the outbreak.

He said moving from the “containment” to the “delay” phase of the government strategy was based on advice that if the peak of the disease can be delayed by even a “few weeks”, the state-funded National Health Service will be in a stronger position to handle it because of the improving weather, more beds will be available and there will be greater time for medical research.

Delaying the outbreak's impact could also buy time for the testing of drugs and development of vaccines and/or improved therapies or tests to help reduce the impact of the disease.

“We are now getting onto the next phase in that plan because this is now not just an attempt to contain the disease as far as possible but to delay the spread and thereby minimise the suffering,” said Johnson.

Under the previous strategy of containment, people were told to self-isolate only if they had the cough and fever but had also been to an affected country recently, or had contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus.

So far in the UK, 10 people have died of COVID-19 and there are 596 confirmed cases across the country, which the government says is likely to further rise considerably in the coming days.

The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the actual number of people infected could be anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 given the nature of the pandemic.