Coronavirus cases across the UK have increased to 23 over the last week, forcing the British Government into addressing growing concerns about the outbreak spreading throughout the country. With the NHS already under strain because of the winter season, Health Secretary Matt Hancock had to confirm retired NHS nurses and doctors may be called back in to provide additional help. Asked whether the Government will ask former staff to head back to work, Mr Hancock told The Andrew Marr Show: “We may do.

“That isn’t something we need right now and the NHS is doing a brilliant job with the cases we’ve got right now.

“But the big challenge for the NHS in the event of this becoming widespread here is NHS staff themselves not being able to come into work because they are ill or self-isolating.”

Mr Hancock insisted the British Government and the NHS are now focusing on delaying the outbreak from spreading and announced he will be unveiling his “battle plan” next week to help prepare the British population for “the worst-case scenario.”

The Health Secretary continued: “We do have a clear plan based on a reasonable worst-case scenario and based on what could happen.

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“We plan for the worst and we work for the best, that’s the approach that we take.

“Under the worst-case scenario, we would have to take some quite significant action that would have social and economic disruption, and you’ve already seen some other countries take these actions.”

He added: “We’ll be publishing a battle plan this week that sets some of those things out.

“It may be necessary to close some schools, but right now people should not be closing schools if there is no positive case and no advice from Public Health England. And some other public distancing measures.”

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The French Government announced on Saturday all events drawing in more than 5,000 people would be banned for the time being to keep coronavirus from spreading further.

And 11 Italian towns across the Lombardy and Veneto regions remain in lockdown after two yet-to-be-explained hotbeds developed in the area causing over 1,000 cases of COVID-19 and 29 deaths.

Both Lombardy and Veneto, and the neighbouring Emilia Romagna region, ordered all schools to remain closed for the next week and some businesses have chosen to remain closed – turning the cities of Milan and Venice into near ghost towns for the past week.

But with businesses shutting down their doors to avoid spreading the infection, Italy has been warned it could face a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) loss between -1 percent and -3 percent.

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A Ref Recherche report released on Saturday showed Rome could lose between €9billion and €27 billion – a devastating blow to Italy’s already ailing economy.

The new British travel advisory for Italy urged anyone returning from Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna to self-isolate should they develop symptoms after their head back to Britain.

The US State Department raised its travel advisory for Italy up to its second-highest-level warning due to coronavirus. The Level 3 warning urges American travellers to reconsider travel because of Italy becoming the country with the largest number of cases in Europe.

Latest statistics have shown Covid-19 outpacing SARS, MERS and Ebola crises, with over 85,000 infected and more than 3,000 people dead across the world. 

On Friday the World Health Organisation (WHO) raised the risk of coronavirus to “very high”, warning an “an all-of-government, an all-of-society approach” was needed to contain the outbreak.

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