Coronavirus: Brighton GP gets infection from ‘super-spreader’

Furious locals in Brighton have accused the government of keeping them in the dark over the coronavirus after it emerged that two of the eight UK cases are healthcare workers believed to work at a doctor’s surgery in the city. 

Patients who have visited County Oak Medical Centre are being urgently traced as four people in the city were confirmed to have the killer illness from China.

The surgery has been shut down, sealed off and is being cleaned by a team in hazmat suits ‘because of an urgent operational health and safety reason’.

The infected medics have been linked to a British ‘super spreader’ businessman who is feared to have infected at least 11 people with coronavirus he picked up in Singapore, prompting the emergency testing of hundreds of people on his flights, Alpine ski break and even staff in his local pub and yoga class in Hove. 

However, the NHS has refused to reveal any details about the two infected medics, how many people they came into contact with at work or whether they were on a skiing holiday with the ‘super spreader’ in late January.

Angry locals are now accusing the government of keeping them in the dark to try to ‘limit panic’.   

Shaun Wright said: ‘It seems like the government is trying to hide information in an attempt to limit panic, rather than informing the public who and where the infected have been.’

Another added: ‘It seems that information is being drip-fed to us by NHS England and we are being left to fill in the empty spaces between the dots.

‘The movements of the people so far infected have not been publicly documented, and since it has now (today) been established in China that the incubation period for the new coronavirus may be up to 24 days, the possibility of a wider spread is real.’ 

Dr Catriona Saynor, who owns the chalet in the Alps where the British ‘super-spreader’ stayed two weeks ago, was a partner at the Brighton surgery until last summer but works there as a locum, according to the medical centre’s website. She is believed to be infected with the coronavirus and having treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London.  

Her environmental consultant husband Bob and their nine-year-old son are in quarantine in a French hospital after being exposed the virus by their guest from Hove – but it is not yet confirmed if Dr Saynor is in Britain or in France.

It is feared the County Oak staff member came into contact with a British ‘super spreader’, who is believed to have infected at least 11 others on a French ski holiday, and then worked an ‘admin day’, during which she did not see any patients, at the surgery.

Public Health England medical director, Yvonne Doyle, has said all four new cases were ‘closely linked to one another’. 

She said: ‘Our priority has been to speak to those who have close and sustained contact with confirmed cases, so we can advise them on what they can do to limit the spread of the virus.

‘Two of these new cases are healthcare workers and as soon as they were identified, we advised them to self-isolate in order to keep patient contact to a minimum.

‘We are now working urgently to identify all patients and other healthcare workers who may have come into close contact, and at this stage we believe this to be a relatively small number.

‘We would like thank all those who have followed public health advice and have taken the necessary steps to reduce the risk to the general public.’

Jacqui Egan, 55, from Brighton was due to have a bone scan at the County Oak Medical Centre in the city this afternoon.

But she received a phone call this morning to say her appointment had been cancelled and rescheduled for five weeks’ time because the centre was having a ‘deep clean’. 

Mrs Egan told MailOnline: ‘I’m concerned and not sure I want to go there again. The woman called me at 9.30am this morning and told me my appointment was cancelled because of the coronavirus.

‘It has been rearranged until March 17, but I’m in pain in my hip every day and had waited four weeks for this appointment.

‘If I hear anything else about virus I’ll go elsewhere and try go private – even though I can’t afford it.’

Five new patients – four men and a woman – were diagnosed with the deadly SARS-like infection in Brighton over the weekend and transferred to specialist hospitals in London to be treated in quarantine for 14 days. 

All of the patients were ‘known contacts’ of a businessman from neighbouring Hove, who became the UK’s third case last Friday after picking up the virus at a work conference in Singapore. 

They are all believed to have been staying in the same chalet in Les Contamines-Montjoie, close to Mont Blanc.

The six others who have fallen ill since holidaying with the ‘super-spreader’ include five more Britons being cared for in a French hospital and a father-of-two British expat who flew home to Majorca where he became ill.

And two are thought to have been doctors – a man and a woman – who worked at the County Oak Medical Centre, Brighton & Hove News reported.

A coronavirus isolation pod has now been set up at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

The pods are designed to keep people who suspect they may be carrying the virus away from vulnerable people.  

A sign inside a doorway next to A&E says: ‘NHS 111 Coronavirus priority assessment pod this way’.

Brighton is at the centre of the outbreak in Britain with one super spreader at the source of all but two cases in the UK. 

It comes as a £10,500-a-year private school in Southampton has been closed for three days for a ‘deep clean’ after the family of some pupils were isolated over coronavirus fears when they returned from China with symptoms. 

Police have today been given the power to seize people trying to escape coronavirus quarantine and force them back into isolation in handcuffs, the government has announced.

A new law was hurriedly brought into force after a patient staying at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral reportedly tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China.

Government sources said those who returned to the UK on the evacuation flights on January 31 were given a ‘very clear choice’ and had to sign contracts saying they would remain in isolation for a fortnight.

But a source involved with the Arrowe Park incident said: ‘We found we didn’t have the necessary enforcement powers to make sure they didn’t leave.’ 

Police will now be able to force people to remain in the units and, if they leave, to arrest them for committing an offence and take them back to the quarantine facility, MailOnline understands.

The new rule comes as England today announced its fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth cases of the virus in Brighton – all of the three men and a woman are linked to the fourth patient, who has now been dubbed a ‘super-spreader’.

The fourth patient was a businessman who returned to the UK from a conference in Singapore via a ski chalet in France, where other Britons were subsequently taken ill with the virus.

The Department of Health today declared the outbreak – which has infected more than 40,000 and killed 910 people – a ‘serious and imminent’ threat to the British public.  

Confirming the cases this morning, professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, said: ‘Four further patients in England have tested positive for novel coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to eight.

‘The new cases are all known contacts of a previously confirmed UK case, and the virus was passed on in France. Experts at Public Health England continue to work hard tracing patient contacts from the UK cases. They successfully identified these individuals and ensured the appropriate support was provided.

‘The patients have been transferred to specialist NHS centres at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and The Royal Free hospitals, and we are now using robust infection control measures to prevent further spread of the virus. 

‘The NHS is extremely well prepared to manage these cases and treat them, and we are working quickly to identify any further contacts these patients have had.’ 

Health chiefs are also under increasing pressure to name a British ‘super spreader’ of the coronavirus, who is thought to have infected at least 11 people. 

The businessman is at the centre of a web of cases stretching across the UK, France and Spain after he apparently contracted the virus during a four-day trip to Singapore for a sales conference for gas analysis company Servomex.

He attended a business conference in Singapore then jetted from south-east Asia to the Alps to ski in Les Contamines-Montjoie in late January.  

Five more Britons including a nine-year-old boy became infected despite the ‘super spreader’ not having any cold or flu-like symptoms. 

Britain’s health authorities have also contacted 183 passengers and six crew on an Easyjet flight then taken by the unnamed man from Geneva to London, warning that they could be infected.

Five staff at The Grenadier in Hove, his local pub, have been instructed to self-isolate for a fortnight after he went there for a pint on Saturday February 1. 

And a student at Portslade Aldridge Community Academy in Brighton has also been told to stay at home for two weeks amid fears he came into contact with the so-called ‘super spreader’. 

Officials have desperately tried to stop further spread with a cross-border hunt for all the hundreds of people the Hove man may have had contact with.  

More than 910 people have died and 40,000 have become infected since the outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been placed in lockdown to curb the spread – an evacuation flight landed at RAF Brize Norton on Saturday. 

Public Health England is under pressure to reveal where the so-called ‘super spreader’ had been and the full extent of the numbers under observation.

The task has been made more difficult because the patient, from Hove in East Sussex, interrupted his return from Singapore to Britain by taking a four-day break in the French Alps. 

Professor Paul Hunter, professor in medicine, University of East Anglia, said last night: ‘This new case would appear to be linked to the cluster of cases in the French ski resort which is also linked to the case in Brighton.

‘As such this case is part of the same cluster which is being reported as linked to a British national returning from Singapore.

‘Whilst we currently do not know many details about how this new case was linked to others in the cluster, his/her identification does not at this stage indicate wider spread within the UK community.

‘If the new individual had been already identified through contact tracing and the person was self-isolating then this should not pose any additional risk.

‘Further cases within an already identified cluster are not surprising and do not pose an additional risk to public health providing such contacts are complying with instructions from Public Health England.’

Authorities confirmed yesterday that a fourth case of coronavirus in the UK was also linked to the Hove businessman.

In addition, a British father-of-two who stayed in the ski resort tested positive after returning to his home in Majorca.

The five Britons who caught the virus in the Alps include the chalet’s owner, environmental consultant Bob Saynor, 48, and his nine-year-old son.

They are in hospital with three other Britons who were staying at the six-bedroom chalet.

Mr Saynor’s two other children and four Britons from another family are being kept in isolation at French hospitals as a precaution. His wife Catriona, a doctor, is reportedly in the UK. 

The family is understood to have been living in the village for just three months after moving from Hove themselves, despite having bought the property several years ago. 

Mrs Saynor had left France by the time the investigation began and is under observation in a UK hospital. It is not clear if she was the fourth case diagnosed in Britain.

French officials have closed the 95-pupil primary school attended by the Saynors’ nine-year-old son, while a 200-pupil school in nearby Saint-Gervais he attended for one day last week will also be shut.

Etienne Jacquet, the mayor of Les Contamines-Montjoie, said the chalet had now been disinfected.

At this time of year, the village of 1,200 people, which is part of the Mount Blanc ski area, hosts thousands of skiers.

But local shop staff said some tourists had cancelled bookings, even though French half-term week starts today, followed by British half-term next week.

Last night, Easyjet spokesman said it had contacted all of the passengers and crew on the infected carrier’s flight from Geneva to London Gatwick on January 28.

Five employees at The Grenadier pub in Hove have been instructed to self-isolate after he visited for two hours on February 1. A school pupil in the area was also told to self-isolate during the investigation into the man’s movements.

The meeting in Singapore was attended by 94 other business people, with participants from Malaysia, South Korea and Britain also diagnosed with coronavirus.

Dr Nathalie MacDermott, from King’s College London, told yesterday of her ‘concerns of the potential for this epidemic to develop into a pandemic, particularly if international lines of communication about cases of infection and mechanism of transmission are not maintained’. 

Professor Richard Tedder, a visiting professor at Imperial College London, said that the most recent cases gave rise to the ‘potential risk of a pandemic’.

China yesterday raised the death toll from its coronavirus outbreak to 811, passing the number killed globally by the SARS epidemic.

China’s ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, described the virus – which has spread to at least 27 countries and territories, infecting more than 330 people – as ‘the enemy of mankind’.

Health experts believe the outbreak could have spread from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins – or scaly anteaters – which are prized in China for food and medicine.  

Elsewhere, 60 more people on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in the port of Yokohama have tested positive for coronavirus, Japan’s health minister has said.

There are now 130 confirmed cases on the ship, with officials previously saying 70 people had the virus among the 3,711 passengers and crew.

More than 3,600 people, including 78 British passport holders, are still in a 14-day quarantine on board the ship.

British honeymooner Alan Steele, who was transferred from the cruise liner to hospital in Japan with coronavirus, was said to be feeling well and in good spirits over the weekend.

In the UK, a University of York student and their relative are still being treated at the Royal Victoria Infirmary infectious diseases centre in Newcastle.   

Nearly 100 people died of coronavirus yesterday on the deadliest day of the outbreak so far.  

The death toll in mainland China rose by 97, taking the number of global fatalities to 910. 

Another 3,062 cases were reported in China yesterday – an increase of 15 per cent compared to Saturday which put an end to a series of daily declines.   

The latest surge in deaths is a setback to hopes that China’s drastic quarantine measures might be working. 

The rise in China’s death toll comes as millions of people return to work today after an extended Lunar New Year holiday. 

Roads in Beijing and Shanghai had significantly more traffic than in recent days and the city of Guangzhou was resuming normal public transport today.

However, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said 60 per cent of its member companies were planning mandatory work-from-home policies. 

Tens of millions of people in Hubei province were not returning to work, as the province at the centre of the outbreak remained under lockdown.  

China has built two hospitals for virus patients in Wuhan and sent thousands of extra doctors, nurses and other health care workers to the city of 1 million people.