Caption: Professor Jonathan Van-Tam (Picture: SWNS; Sky News)

Isolation measures to stop the spread of coronavirus across the UK could remain in place ‘for many months’, England’s deputy chief medical officer has said.

Boris Johnson yesterday urged people to work from home if they can and avoid pubs, bars and theatres, however stopped short of telling schools to close. It came as the UK’s death toll from the coronavirus reached 55, with 1,543 people confirmed to have been infected.

Elderly people and those with the most serious health conditions should ‘shield’ themselves for 12 weeks from the weekend. Reacting this morning, professor Jonathan Van-Tam said ‘it is entirely plausible that this will go on for many months’.



He told Sky News: ‘It is strong advice, because we live in a liberal democracy and we don’t feel it is necessary to take any further powers. Really, we trust people to take the advice seriously.


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‘It’s certainly my understanding that we are asking people to do this for several weeks, possibly several months.

‘It is difficult to say at this point where the science will take us, in terms of the measures we need to take, but it is entirely plausible that this will go on for many months.’

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Prof Van-Tam could not rule out the strict measures having to last for a year and told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that more people will catch coronavirus and become resistant with so-called herd immunity, but admitted ‘that will take time’.

He said: ‘We can’t say how long this will need to go on for.’

Prof Van-Tam said new stricter advice for the ‘extremely vulnerable’ will be coming in the next week or so.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘It is strong advice for the over-70s and there will be in the next week or so an announcement over people who are extremely vulnerable irrespective of their age where the advice is even stronger about staying in the home.

The aim is to ‘flatten the curve’ (Picture: metro.co.uk)

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‘What I want people to do is take away that this advice is very strong and to the extent possible you should ask a neighbour to do food shopping for you, or a friend.

‘And keep these visits to places where you can come into contact with other people as low as you can reasonably keep them.’

Prof Van-Tam warned that closing schools may have unintended consequences for the workforce and the spread of the virus if children are looked after by grandparents.

He added: ‘This is a carefully balanced decision that can’t be taken quickly or lightly and needs to be given very serious scientific scrutiny and thought over the coming days.’

The deputy chief medical officer also said there are ‘significant moves afoot’ to increase coronavirus testing after a warning from the World Health Organisation that the best protection is to ‘test, test, test’.

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Public transport has emptied as people begin to stay home (Picture: Reuters)

Currently testing must be focused where it will most benefit the ‘country as a whole’ prof Van-Tam said, insisting stricter measures to tackle the coronavirus had not been introduced too late.



He told the BBC: ‘We are following the science very carefully and consider the measures we announced yesterday have been announced at the right time – not too early and certainly not too late.

‘We don’t rule out taking further measures if these are necessary but much of this depends on how the next two weeks play out.’

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