British husband is forced to leave his Chinese wife behind as coronavirus death toll hits 133

The scramble to evacuate coronavirus ground zero is tearing families apart including one British man who says he is being forced to leave his Chinese wife behind.

Britons are due to be evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan tomorrow and will be quarantined for two weeks in a UK military base - as the global death toll from the coronavirus outbreak hits 133 and the disease continues to spread across the globe.

So far more than 6,000 infections have been recorded in 19 countries, with cases tripling since Sunday and China warning the epidemic will continue to get worse and peak 'in the next 10 days'. 

British teacher Jeff Siddle, from Northumberland, is among those due to be evacuated from Wuhan with his nine-year-old daughter Jasmine- but Beijing is barring his Chinese wife Sindy from boarding the rescue flight.
 

Mr Siddle, 54, and his family flew to Hubei province to spend time with his partner's family and celebrate the Chinese New Year- before warnings were in place about the deadly coronavirus epidemic.

Mr Siddle said today: 'My wife's a Chinese citizen, although she's got a permanent residency visa for the UK as a spouse. But what the Foreign Office is saying is they are going to be doing an airlift, possibly tomorrow, but it's only [for] British citizens. Chinese authorities are not allowing any Chinese residents to leave.'

The Foreign Office says it is trying to get permission from Beijing to evacuate Mrs Siddle but so far it has not been granted permission and the family has been told not to hold out hope. 

'I was put in the position to make a decision to either leave my wife here in China, or the three of us stay here (in Wuhan). We have to basically have a nine-year-old child separated from their mother. Who knows how long that is going to be for?'

Other expats stranded in Wuhan and the wider Hubei province - including PE teacher Kharn Lambert and Malcolm Lanyon - have chosen to stay in the region. Mr Lambert said he had given up his seat on the rescue flight because he does not want 'to come home and put everybody's health at risk', while Mr Lanyon refused to leave his Chinese wife behind.

British citizens in Wuhan also face a struggle to even make it to their evacuation flight with the city of Wuhan on lockdown and public transport is banned. Mr Lanyon claims he couldn't get to the airport even if he wanted to because no buses, taxis or trains are running.

In other developments in the Wuhan coronavirus crisis: 

• Some 133 people have now died across China and more than 6,000 around the world have caught the highly infectious virus
• Cases of coronavirus have tripled since Sunday and jumped 30 per cent in the last 24 hours - now infecting people in 19 different countries 
• Outbreak in mainland China is now bigger than the 2003 SARS epidemic, when 5,327 cases of the killer virus were confirmed
• Around 200 British nationals stuck in coronavirus-hit Wuhan are gearing up to be flown back to London on Thursday via chartered plane in a landmark evacuation mission
• Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who is orchestrating the rescue, said evacuees will be held in quarantine in a military base for two weeks to stop the virus spreading on home soil 
• British Airways has cancelled all flights to and from mainland China until March, causing travel chaos for hundreds of passengers now trapped in China  
• A US evacuation flight that took off from Wuhan yesterday is on its way to a military base in Ontario, California, where its 200-plus passengers will be kept in quarantine for 'at least 72 hours' 
• Health officials in Beijing fear the epidemic will continue to get worse and peak 'in the next 10 days' 
• Confirmed infections in the United Arab Emirates mark the first time the virus has spread to the Middle East   
• Four people in Germany who contracted coronavirus after a colleague from China visited their workplace only had 'very mild' symptoms  

MAILONLINE