The UK could soon be forced to follow Italy and enforce a full lockdown as it struggles to contain the spread of the deadly new coronavirus, medical experts warned Tuesday.

As Britain confirmed its fourth death with at least 319 confirmed cases of Covid-19, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Tuesday that drastic measures may be needed to contain the “significant outbreak.”

England’s chief medical officer said that “probably within the next 10-14 days” they will have to order “anyone with even minor respiratory tract infections or a fever” to self-isolate.

That is likely just the start, with the UK likely to have to go into a full lockdown just like the one imposed by Italy on Monday, professor Francois Balloux of the University College London told the Telegraph.

“The trajectory of the epidemic in the UK is so far roughly comparable to the one in Northern Italy, but with the epidemic in Northern Italy two to three weeks ahead of the situation in the UK,” said Balloux, a professor of computational systems biology.

“It is [also] possible that a lockdown strategy similar to the one imposed in Northern Italy may be adopted by the UK and other countries at some point in the future.”

Balloux admitted such a lockdown “will come at a great cost to individuals, communities and the economy,” and warned that it is “not sustainable … for very long.”

Johnson admitted at a press conference Tuesday that “there is no hiding from the fact that the coronavirus outbreak will present significant challenges for the UK, just as it does in other countries.”

“There’s no question that this is going to become a significant, a much more significant outbreak than it currently is — that’s obvious to everyone — but it is vital that we take the steps that we think are necessary at the right time and we follow the science,” he said.

“We mustn’t do things which have no or limited medical benefit, nor things which could turn out actually to be counterproductive.”

Rowland Kao, a professor of data science at the University of Edinburgh, warned that a lockdown would “place an enormous economic burden on the country.”

John Edmunds, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, also believes it would only “have a short-term impact.”

“If they can’t be sustained for the long term, all they are likely to do is delay the epidemic for a while,” he said of any steps taken.

With Post wires