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A public health expert believes people in Liverpool will have contracted coronavirus after 3,000 Atletico Madrid fans came to the city for last night's match.

The fans were controversially allowed to travel from the Spanish capital, which is in a state of effective lockdown after a major outbreak of the virus, to Liverpool to watch their side dump the Reds out of the Champions League at Anfield.

There were concerns raised about the lack of measures around the game by local MPs Dan Carden and Ian Byrne.

One Liverpool fan who deliberately didn't go to Anfield last night was Professor John Ashton, a former director of public health from the city.

He instead appeared on BBC Newsnight to criticise the lack of action taken by the government - and said he feared infection may have spread in Liverpool yesterday.

He told the programme: "I'm tearing my hair out with this.

"I'm very frustrated here, we've got a complacent attitude, it feels wooden and academic and we've wasted a month when we should have been engaging with the public.

"If this now spreads the way we think it will, there will not be enough hospital beds and people will have to be nursed at home.

"We should have got a grip on this a month ago.

"I want to know why we haven't tested those people who have come back from Italy and who are now amongst us - we've got a recipe for community spread here."

Speaking about the Madrid fans in Liverpool, he added: "I didn't go to the game tonight, I got so confused about what's going on.

"We've got Madrid, where they are playing games behind closed doors and you've got 3,000 supporters, in town, staying over in Liverpool and drinking in the bars.

"And a proportion of those will be coronavirus positive, (and) we will now have people being infected in Liverpool tonight because of that - the government needs to get a grip and stop treating the public like children."

Professor Ashton was also deeply critical of the government's approach to local public health services, which he said were ignored in yesterday's budget announcement.

He added: "These are the people that are going to have to deal with this."

Despite the public health crisis, Liverpool Council still hasn't had its funding allocation for the year, meaning it has been unable to fill vacancies with new staff to tackle the challenges ahead.