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The coronavirus outbreak will peak at Easter and be here until Christmas, experts warn.

More than 21,000 people in the UK have been tested for the virus so far, with 206 now testing positive.

Medics said Covid 19 is spreading at an “alarming rate” after jumping by 42 cases in 24 hours.

And experts warned the deadly bug may not peak until Easter and could last to the end of the year.

Microbiologist Peter Piot said: “I’m often asked whether the threat is being overhyped. The answer, to me, is no. This is the real thing.

“I think we will go to the peak of the epidemic somewhere around Easter.”

He warned chaos could continue for another six months after that - infecting millions of people.

(Image: NurPhoto/PA Images)

Dr Piot added: “If it goes down in April or May it could come back again in November.”

The news comes as panic gripped the Nation, with shops and supermarkets shelves around the country already left bare.

This week a woman in her seventies and an 88-year-old grandad were the first British victims to die in the UK.

The man, who had pre-existing health conditions, was taken to hospital with pneumonia on Tuesday.

But doctors told his family that he died on Friday just an hour after testing positive for the disease.

(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

It is thought he had visited several countries on a cruise and officials are trying to locate people he may have been in contact with.

His family have now raised fears the hospital was too slow to move him into isolation.

One said: “Our concern is that the hospital were too slow to detect that our relative had symptoms similar to those of coronavirus and too slow to move him from a ward into isolation, and that that may have put a lot of people - fellow patients on the ward, staff who were looking after him and visitors who came to see him - at risk of contracting the virus from him.

“We think they should have put him into isolation right away, as soon as he arrived, given his symptoms.

“That was a failure by the hospital. He was coughing a lot and had quite severe symptoms.

(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“Despite that, he was put on a ward with lots of other sick patients for six or seven hours before he was moved into isolation.

“During that time a lot of relatives came to see him, both adults and children. Who knows if any of them have now got coronavirus and are maybe spreading it to older people who might get sick?”

Pensioners and people with health conditions such as heart problems or diabetes who are more at risk of the virus have been urged to stay at home.

Britain is now bracing itself for more deaths as ministers draw up drastic “delay” measures - including potentially axing events, working from home and closing schools to prevent the spread.

(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

On Friday the government revealed a £46m emergency package to help develop a coronavirus vaccine and faster test for the virus.

Two British Airways baggage handlers working at Heathrow Airport are among the new positive tests, sparking fears over how many items of luggage they handled while carrying the virus.

A ward at Watford General Hospital was evacuated after a patient was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19.

Globally there have been nearly 100,000 cases of the coronavirus and more than 3,000 deaths.

Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, warned Britain was at the start of an outbreak.

He said: “We have cases across Europe, across the world, this is a global epidemic and we would expect to see more cases in the UK.

“We’ve got a reasonable worst-case scenario... that involves 80 per cent of the population and we think the mortality rate is one per cent or lower. I expect it to be less than that.