As the risk of coronavirus increases, the government is urging local authorities and others to put in place contingency plans to mitigate its potential impact - but what will be needed and when is still uncertain.

Plans range from warning religious groups to limit “close contacts”, urging employers to use video conferencing rather than face-to-face meetings, and ensuring that if worst comes to worst, local authorities have capacity to cremate and bury the dead to stop the disease from spreading further.

While the situation in the UK remains calm, with only eight cases confirmed so far, government planners are taking precautions.

Their response is being driven by the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011, and although this document was prepared for an outbreak of a new strain of flu, it's believed to provide a solid template for the management of coronavirus containment and treatment.

In practical terms, if the coronavirus was to take root in Britain as it has in China, these are the sort of measures we might expect to see introduced here:

School closures

Although schools were kept open during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, case numbers dropped sharply when schools broke up for the holidays, highlighting the role children play in spreading viruses.

Imperial College London study published in the Lancet at the time predicted that "prolonged" closures could reduce the scale of the outbreak by 13-17 per cent and cut the number of swine flu cases by 38-45 per cent at the outbreaks’ peak. "It is therefore hoped that closure of schools during the pandemic might break the chains of transmission" the researchers said.