UK premier announces three-week nationwide coronavirus quarantine

LONDON, March 24. /TASS/. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered to impose a three-week quarantine in the United Kingdom to contain the novel coronavirus infection in the country.

"The time has now come for us all to do more. From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home. Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households," Johnson said in a BBC broadcast.

Starting from tonight, residents of the country will be allowed to leave their homes for only "very limited purposes," he said.

Residents will be allowed shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible; and one form of an outdoor exercise a day. They will be also be allowed to leave homes for "any medical need, to provide care or to help a vulnerable person" and for "travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home."

The government ordered immediate closure of all shops selling non-essential goods.

All social events, such as weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, will be prohibited, excluding funerals. Playgrounds, outdoor gyms and places of worship will be closed. Parks will remain open for exercise, but gatherings will be dispersed.

Police will control the implementation of those instructions, including by imposing fines and dispersing gatherings. In the coming days, the country will adopt a bill on fines for violators of the quarantine.

The premier said the government will consider relaxing those measures three weeks later.

As of Monday, the United Kingdom had 6,650 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, with 335 deaths. According to experts, the disease is spreading faster than it did in Italy during the corresponding period.

The UK government admits that the real number of those infected could be way bigger than the number of confirmed cases.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from more than 150 countries and territories, including Russia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially described the situation as a pandemic.

Source: TASS