Coronavirus: Is Britain Ready? | Documentary

tonight we have a Channel 4 news special on the topic that many of you have been worrying about about the spread of the corona virus. There are many pressing questions. How deadly is it? How fast can it spread? What are the best precautions that we will end up responding to? It's the way China has done it and how prepared we are in Britain. These are some of the answers. The corona virus has arrived in Great Britain. Is it here to stay? The situation will get worse before it gets better as authorities scramble to contain an outbreak. You don't learn on the job that this is an expected scenario.

Fear and frustration are starting to spread on this island, so Public Health England really needs to step up the efforts of health workers. They warned the NHS cannot cope as experts fear it could become a pandemic and this. The virus is probably the one that worries me the most of anything I've worked on. We explore whether Britain can cope if it gets worse. People are trained to do business as part of their job. The epicenter of China's problem, Wuhan, is the manufacturing industry. China's population is larger than London's, so where is everyone? This is ground zero of the virus.

In response, the Chinese government has kept 11 million people off the streets with at least 65,000 cases and growing authorities here are not risking keeping areas and opening pop-up hospitals. They were built in days from scratch to contain the infected, but these facilities and their doctors feel the strain of isolating them from the rest of the world, which gives inhabitants a screen to detect infections and monitors them to prevent viruses from spreading to those that they cannot or do not want to. obey residents are ordered to stay inside life here is empty and eerie Ben Cavanaugh has been documenting the closure usually a very very busy street not in the foreseeable future let's go home the Irish teacher who lived in Wuhan at the time was evacuated with around 200 Britons left China in quarantine, but not everyone has done so and the rapid spread of the virus has alarmed experts in just two months.

The virus officially named Covert 19 has killed nearly 1,400 people in China with nearly 65,000 confirmed cases worldwide. The only other deaths outside mainland China are in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan it spread to at least 25 countries across five continents and in the UK we now have 9 confirmed cases. Brighton, East Sussex, home of our first group. This week 5 cases were confirmed here, all infected by the so-called super spreader, a man called Steve Walsh, at least one of these cases is a doctor at County Oak Medical Center, another worked in the emergency room at Worthing hospital and the fact who became infected outside of China, as authorities were concerned about detecting this small number of cases, could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire as dealing with this disease is a marathon, not a sprint, the situation will get worse before it gets better, it is very important that everyone has confidence that we are a great country, we have a fantastic NHS, we have fantastic doctors and advice, and they should simply follow the advice of the NHS;

The Prime Minister may sound characteristically optimistic, but the World Health Organization remains very cautious and desperately seeking precise answers to very pertinent questions: what exactly is the mortality rate of this virus, how quickly and how far does it spread? can extend? We are facing another global pandemic and images of the Wuhan area under lockdown, a glimpse of our future here in Britain, are about to be released by local journalist Emily Walker? Yes, should we wash our hands before putting on? our coats on, yes, the new virus from a far away country has generated a new kind of fear and a dilemma about what to tell children and what not to tell them.

We just received a message from the school this morning to tell families at school. Public health told me to self-isolate, they're advising us that if we want to keep our kids out it will be an authorized absence, so obviously I've had a lot of messages from other parents this morning and they're all freaking out. on whether to send your children or not, your child's school is just across the street from the closed medical center and details on what to do are scarce Professor Samir Beguine, a Brighton consul on the city's health board , is one of the few local officials. prepared to go on record about what seems like an information blackout, all I'm saying is that public health England has to step up because they haven't and in fact I'm quoting the health secretary who said yesterday that there is an imminent danger to the public and I was saying that if the health secretary says that, then public health England really needs to step up and be more open in their communications and conversations with everyone.

Samia is arguing with the head of the council about how much information there should be. was made public this morning we heard that parents were told that they do not have to send their children to a particular school and that they will get authorized absences for that, that is crucial, we have to challenge the public. I think they've actually been mocked. our victim here, okay, okay, we're all in uncharted territory and everyone is trying to draw the line between caution. The day in Argos illuminates the hell of the local newspaper a newsroom journalists are trying to piece together the details of a suspicious case while making their calls they discover that the lack of clear advice from the authorities is bothering residents we continue to receive These school parents and patients at The medical center are basically going crazy because I don't know whether to go to their doctors at their school, whether they should be in contact with people or not with the potentially deadly virus on their doorstep, it's not No wonder people are worried, reports suggest that at least eight of the nine cases in Britain have only mild symptoms.

Public Health England says you have to be within 2 meters of someone for 15 minutes to be at risk, so what should we look out for and who should we worry about? Typically we see this virus cause cough or shortness of breath, and because there is inflammation, it can also cause fever, so those are the characteristic symptoms that we're seeing. The most vulnerable people are people who have pre-existing health conditions and we're still really looking at how we can identify them. There have been some reports that possibly middle-aged to older people are more vulnerable to more severe symptoms in Britain in the coming weeks.

How the virus spreads and how we respond could be crucial. A defining moment for us, which we make to one of the world's experts in modeling the spread of the virus, is that we are probably where Wuhan was in early December in terms of the kind of number of infections that are likely to have established themselves in the country. What we are seeing is a very serious tip of the iceberg in the official case numbers. Certainly, what we know is that there has been a lot of demand and medical care, a lot of pneumonia, but we think that probably only represents five percent of the cases, give or take on direct flights. to and from Beijing and Shanghai have been cancelled, but a Chinese national became the ninth case in Britain;

She developed symptoms shortly after landing at Heathrow. We surveyed 100 British airport workers about what is being done to keep the virus away. 87% told us that testing Passengers arriving from countries with major outbreaks are not being tested. Their conclusion: 96 per cent believe we are not keeping Britain's borders safe, so the question is: do you know how much infection has reached the country? We think it's probably two or three times more than it actually has been. detected, do you have any doubt that this is now a global pandemic estimate that we have at the time of the onset of a global pandemic of a new respiratory virus?

We have tracked how two Chinese tourists created a cluster of new patients in Singapore and these daily contacts can occur anywhere. A guided tour takes them to a jewelry store. They spoke to some staff members and tried medical oils. A saleswoman becomes infected, then her cleaner, and then a second saleswoman. Her husband and her six-month-old son. Then, the tour. guide and her husband, then two shopkeepers plus nine new cases after just a few minutes of souvenir shopping and the latest estimates suggest that 60% of the entire world population could contract covet 19 if left unchecked do you think the infection rate of the 60% of The population suggested by some of your colleagues is potentially realistic for Britain, given that we know a lot about how these types of viruses spread, we have a lot of data from past epidemics, my influenza, given how transmissible this virus appears to be and the fact. that at least all adults can be infected, we have much less data on children than 60% is a reasonable figure for drop in the size of the epidemic within the first 12 months or so, what we don't know at this time is what proportion of all those infected could die and what are the risk groups.

Our best estimate right now is that maybe 1% of people who become infected could die and with a 1% mortality rate, that's potentially 400,000 people. I would emphasize that at this point you know putting numbers like 400,000 is not necessarily useful because we have very little information, but it is an absurd number, it is not an absurd number, are we overreacting? I'd rather be accused of overreacting and not acting, let's put it that way, and this virus is the one that's probably worrying. most of everything I've worked on, but not everyone is convinced by the terrifying figures, Professor Sean Griffiths co-chaired the Hong Kong government's inquiry into the 2003 SARS epidemic, which is an estimate, a maximum estimate, does not mean 60 percent of the world's population will contract the disease the super spreader phenomenon is one that leads to difficulties in controlling the disease as we saw with the Brighton case the key question if the predictions come true, will our health service really tackle the disease in Wuhan they built two hospitals in less than two weeks they housed more than 2,000 patients in other parts of China authorities used drones to make sure citizens wore face masks in public, so Is this going to happen to us?

We're not even close to it yet, but in this playing group in Brighton despite the frenzy Shisei's cleanup today must be discovered. Parents are al

ready

avoiding tourist trips. The crowds have thinned. We thought maybe we shouldn't have it today, but it's a good service. She is an example for mothers. Even these women are trying to adjust the buses and a moment of levity, but how did the frontline medical workers feel? We conducted an exclusive survey of over 500 frontline healthcare workers. 96 per cent told us they believe the NHS is not prepared to deal with the major outbreak and 93 per cent believe it is not. sufficient protection for NHS staff on the frontline With 1,700 doctors infected in China, medical workers here may be right to worry, but the way Britain has dealt with previous health emergencies helps us understand how it might handle a virus outbreak large scale crown now in this air.

The ambulance crew was plunged into the unknown in Salisbury when the deadly nerve agent lava shot was found there two years ago. Never, don't look for us every night when we attended Salisbury and Amesbury, we had no idea there was even a nerve agent involved and it's like you know when first responders attend incidents where someone has flu-like symptoms again, they won't know if that's part of the corona virus. I think early communication with the authorities in charge is key and for the public. Health England and other bodies must be open and honest about what is happening, what treating doctors will expect and, if necessary, have blood tests so that you know adult conversations about what we will be like in the future or how we will be in At that point it is still too early to say to what extent and to what extent this virus will spread, but with two frontline healthcare workers al

ready

infected, experts fear we may be heading into the unknown: the

coronavirus

has reached our shores, We were told they were on the brink of a global pandemic which, if left unchecked, could infect 60% of the planet, so is Britain prepared?

We are in Brighton, the epicenter of the virus in this country, in the newsroom of the local newspaper Argos Laurie has received a call from a person who may have contracted the virus from anothersuspected case at work were sent home immediately and told to remain isolated you have been in contact with someone who may have

coronavirus

it is okay, will you accompany them or will you be in a taxi? driver who wears a mask, had a mask on because government advice for people who develop symptoms is to stay indoors and avoid contact with others, but this has clearly not been lost on some.

The first person diagnosed in London turning up at a hospital in an uber is making taxi drivers nervous, yes, of course, yes, because it's quite a dangerous thing, you know, it's spreading, especially in Brighton of Hope. You know, I work as a ruble driver and I tell you this with so many different people every day, obviously a little anxious and worried, so I don't understand it, that's why I'm wearing masks and protecting myself and others too People now that the virus is here, the focus is on containment, it is believed to be transmitted through small droplets of saliva, so the main advice is to wash your hands a lot exactly. avant-garde we will need something else so this is where we start working on the vaccine this is the beginning of the story is a qual here has been working with the sequence and is introducing it into the self-control that is expressed in the right In the way that Professor Robinson XT Matt Imperial College London is working around the clock to make a vaccine, we are really at the beginning of the approach.

The exciting thing is that we have probably been able to move faster than before because the technology has really changed since the SARS epidemic, for example, so we have compressed the process of developing a vaccine candidate from a period of many months to a few weeks, so at best, when would be the earliest we could have a vaccine? That's more challenging, so we came up with a candidate within a few weeks, but it just started animal testing. The next stage will be to move it to human studies, which we hope to be able to do in the coming months.

The soonest any group in the world will receive a vaccine available to the general public would be early next year, we may see there is a second wave when we return to winter next year and then we may need a vaccine, especially if we see Cisco global spread of this virus, but in terms of the health and safety measures that people are taking around the world, face masks, so the evidence on face masks in the general public is Very limited, in fact there is no evidence to show that they have any effect, so if masks don't work, how can we stop a deadly spread like in previous pandemics?

Nothing has yet come close to the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, which is estimated to have killed around 50 million people worldwide, with more than 200,000 deaths in the UK and 17,000 in the case of seasonal flu. In England an average of people have died each year for the last five years, but if the estimates are correct, 23 times as many could die from the corona virus, we have already had more deaths worldwide than the 774 who died from of SARS between 2002 and 2004, the viruses that pose the greatest threat globally are those that are mild enough to be transmitted effectively around the world and that the type of measures that rely on case isolation are not terribly effective, but have a high enough mortality that the overall impact when the epidemic is prolonged.

Its course is high, so our healthcare system can cope with what could be around the corner. Our exclusive survey of more than 500 frontline NHS staff found that 88 per cent believe there are no adequate facilities, such as Isolation Aires, to deal with large numbers of corona suspects. virus cases and 81 percent thought there had not been enough preparation for the corona virus told us I am a pregnant GP. I'm really scared. Patients receive unreliable, inconsistent and potentially dangerous advice from individual high-risk patients. They told me to see her GP, they were drowning us and we demanded they call a patient because she had a cough and lived next to a Chinese takeaway.

In addition to locking them in the bathroom, if there is a large outbreak of corona virus patients who need a lot of care in the hospital, they will have to make difficult decisions, we will have to think about what other things are going to happen. what surgeries can be postponed, what outpatient appointments can be canceled and those are going to be difficult decisions that we don't want to have to make, but the hospitals don't have the capacity because they have taken so much away from us. In recent years, we have raised very clearly the concerns of health workers to public health England, but aren't these numbers alarming you?

Of course, those numbers are not what we will need. What I'm saying is that we are in very early stages of dealing with the new coronavirus, we are making sure that there is advice constantly being sent to hospitals across the country, the chief medical officer, the medical director of NHS England and Others who write periodically with guidance updates, extensive plans exist. into the wider government systems of the NHS, Public Health England and others to deal with any eventuality. A B now that reasonable worst case eventualities are not without challenges and those challenges can be significant for the NHS and it will be prepared and thinking. on how to deal with that, so I don't think we can say that there won't be any difficulties if we get to that scenario, if we ban all direct flights from China and other affected areas, well, what do we do?

What we need to do is ensure that on every flight arriving into the UK from an area where there is concern about infection, passengers are given information that we, the pilots, must declare before landing about whether there is anyone sick on the flight and that announcements be made. on the flight so that if someone comes back from China or one of the other countries of concern and they have symptoms and they call as soon as possible and we can get them tested, that's the most important thing we can do at this stage, which is stopping us.

The question for scientists is whether this could become another global pandemic like the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed perhaps up to 50 million people worldwide. Now the world is much better and faster. A vaccine is currently being developed, but it is also much more interconnected and will be more mobile. The coronavirus is forcing societies in Britain and elsewhere to behave in fundamentally different ways. Could we face it or are we all in danger of becoming boos?