Boris Johnson hails frontline NHS staff UK’s ‘greatest asset’ in face of coronavirus outbreak

Boris Johnson visited Public Health England’s infection control HQ after hailing frontline NHS staff as the UK’s ‘greatest asset’ in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking during a visit to PHE’s National Infection Service in Colindale, London, the Prime Minister said the killer disease is likely to ‘spread a bit more’.

He said: ‘We’ve found about 35 people in this country have, or have had, the illness and clearly there may be more. That is likely now to spread a bit more.’ 

Earlier today – speaking after he visited Kettering General Hospital in Northamptonshire – Mr Johnson urged people to wash their hands with soap for 20 seconds to stop the spread of infection.

With 23 cases now confirmed in the UK and fears that up to 80 per cent of the population could be infected, the Prime Minister says he has no doubt that Covid-19 will be beaten. 

 This morning he tweeted: ‘Coronavirus may very well be a challenge in the weeks and months ahead. But I have no doubt that with the help of the NHS and its ­incomparable staff, this country will get through it — and beat it.’

Earlier today, he hailed frontline NHS staff as the UK’s ‘greatest asset’ in the face of the coronavirus outbreak. Pictured: Mr Johnson during a visit to a laboratory in PHE’s National Infection Service

Earlier today Mr Johnson urged people to was their hands with soap for 20 seconds to stop the spread of infection. Pictured: Mr Johnson at the command centre at the Public Health England National Infection Service

During the visit to PHE’s National Infection Service (pictured) he said: ‘We’ve found about 35 people in this country have, or have had, the illness and clearly there may be more. That is likely now to spread a bit more’

With 23 cases now confirmed in the UK and fears that up to 80 per cent of the population could be infected, the Prime Minister says he has no doubt that Covid-19 will be beaten. Pictured: Mr Johnson at PHE’s infection control HQ today

Boris Johnson is pictured meeting with staff at Kettering General Hospital which he said left him 100 per cent confident that the UK will beat the coronavirus crisis 

Pictured: A woman wears a protective mask while waiting or the Tube in central London following the confirmation of 23 cases of coronavirus in the UK 

Writing in The Sun, he said: ‘In the early hours of Friday I was walking the corridors of Kettering General Hospital, talking to the NHS professionals who may well be in the front line.

‘I saw some of the extraordinary steps they have already taken in case the illness spreads further in this country.

‘They showed me a new coronavirus pod, a special sterile cabin outside the hospital, where people can come to be checked.’

He said that during his visit he met with patients who were also full of praise for the NHS workers. 

But he admitted that the social care system needs to be fixed in order to help care for people in their own homes.

The Prime Minister urged people to pay special attention when washing their hands, saying it should be done for at least 20 seconds using soap to help halt the virus.

His article comes as health officials are desperately trying to track down a coronavirus super-spreader who could have unwittingly passed the disease on to two people in Surrey.

Those hunting for the county’s so-called ‘patient zero’ believe that the person in question may be an acquaintance of an infected GP’s partner. 

One patient, from Surrey, is understood to be a man who was treated at Haslemere Health Centre before being transferred to Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London. The health centre has opened today following a deep clean

The three new cases – one in Gloucestershire, one in Hertfordshire and another in Berkshire – are being investigated and any individuals who had contact with the patients are now being traced.

The victim is understood to be a man who was treated at Haslemere Health Centre before being transferred to Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London.      

He was the first case to be identified in Britain and his partner, who has also developed symptoms, works with at least one person who recently returned to the UK from Italy, Europe’s worst-hit country in the crisis. 

Schools in the area were closed after pupils and staff begun showing mild flu-like symptoms.  Authorities are now racing to track down the spreader to avoid them contaminating more people. 

Nobody in the UK has so far died from coronavirus, but a British man quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship passed away in Japan. This first British fatality is understood to be a man in his 70s who did not live in the UK. 

Johnson has insisted he has a grip on the health crisis and said preventing a major British outbreak was the government’s ‘top priority’. 

The government has drawn up a ‘worst case scenario’ strategy blueprint, which involves deploying military medics to hospitals.

And emergency laws include the ability to suspend maximum class sizes to allow teachers to take on pupils when colleagues are off sick.

Retired doctors and nurses could be asked to return to the NHS while millions of workers may be ordered to work from home under the government’s ‘battle plan’. 

Extra Cobra meetings will be held in Whitehall, with scientists and media experts working side-by-side in the Cabinet Office’s so-called ‘war room’, BBC reports. 

Posters and social media adverts will warn people to wash their hands for 20 seconds or more with soap and water and cemeteries are drawing up plans to cope with a rise in bodies, according to The Sunday Times. The paper reports that up to 500,000 people could die from the virus.