Coronavirus cases have grown to over 60,329 in the two months since the virus was first recorded in the Wuhan area of China in late December. Nine people are currently being monitored in the UK after testing positive for the virus, now officially known as COVID-19, and concerns are growing about more people falling victim to the deadly virus in Britain. A pandemic preparedness report by the Government Advisory Committee based on the common flu virus suggest coronavirus and similar respiratory diseases could infect nearly two-thirds of the British population before a cure is found. 

Sky News scientific reporter Thomas Moore said: “The Government Advisory Committee has used numbers from previous outbreaks to predict how a future pandemic starting in Asia might take hold.

“It assumes it would take two to four weeks to spread to the UK because of our busy air travel routes. Within one to two weeks of arriving here, most major cities would have been seeded with cases.

“The modelling predicts it would go on to affect between one to two-thirds of the population but only five to 35 percent of the population would develop symptoms”

China officials reported cases of coronavirus increased by more the 14,000 in the last week bringing the total number of people infected to over 60,000. Latest report put the death toll at 1,300.

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But virologist Derek Gatherer from the University of Lancaster suggested the number of coronavirus cases could be much bigger than what the official reports suggest.

Prof Gatherer said: “The true number of cases in China is somewhere between 10 times, and perhaps 25 times in some estimates, the official case total.

“The reason we can make this estimation is because we know the number of exported cases from China and we also know the number of people who’ve travelled out of China.”

Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus, has been in lockdown since mid-January and all travel from the region has been banned.

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The latest strain of coronavirus shares many of its symptoms with the more common flu virus, including fever, coughing and fatigue.

Nearly 30 countries outside of mainland China have confirmed coronavirus infections.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the research charity Wellcome, said it is still too early to predict how the epidemic will behave outside of China’s borders.

Dr Farrar said: “This is an unprecedented outbreak – of a virus never seen before, spreading in a way which makes it extremely challenging to control.

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“We cannot yet predict how grave the impact may be in any country beyond China, now seeing cases.

“We do know the impact this is having in China and should applaud their extraordinary efforts to contain it.

“We can, however, be sure no country can afford to wait and see. For every country, now is the time to act.”

A British woman who flew into London from China was taken in for coronavirus treatment at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London earlier this week, becoming the ninth confirmed case in the UK and the first in the Capital.

Businessman Steve Walsh who was earlier linked to 11 coronavirus cases has also fully recovered from the disease.

Overall, authorities have reported more than 6,000 people have recovered from coronavirus infections.

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