Two family members who have tested positive for coronavirus in Britain were Chinese tourists

The two relatives who have tested positive for the killer coronavirus are Chinese tourists believed to be staying in a budget hotel in York when they came down with the world's most feared illness, it was revealed today. 

The British Government is scrambling to find anyone who came into contact with the two patients who landed in the UK three days ago and were staying at the £49-a-night StayCity hotel, next door to the Barbican Theatre and as short walk from the world-famous minster. 

MailOnline understands three patients – all believed to be Chinese nationals – who were taken to hospital from the StayCity hotel on Wednesday night have never returned. 

Two family members have since been rushed into quarantine at a specialist unit in Newcastle-upon-Tyne but there are fears anyone in their tourist group from China could be infected - or anyone else who stayed in the 220-room city centre hotel that can house 500 people each night if full. 
 

But the Department of Health is refusing to give any details about the tourists, citing 'patient confidentially', and have knocked back questions about where and when the Chinese tourists entered Britain and where they have been before arriving in York.  

And extraordinarily the hotel at the centre of the scare has remained open since a Chinese man fell ill at 8pm on Wednesday hours before a relative came down with flu-like symptoms - despite Coronavirus now being declared global health emergency by the World Health Organisation, claiming at least 213 lives and 10,000 now infected worldwide. 

Bosses have 'cordoned off' their apartment where the Chinese family stayed including their belongings - and 'surrounding rooms' within the hotel - but the rest of the building has remained open and a room can still be booked for tonight for just £75 online. 

Sources told MailOnline the hotel has been left in the dark about whether the customers whisked away to hospital have tested positive for coronavirus and StayCity has reportedly been in contact with PHE ‘every half hour’ but was repeatedly told it would not comment on individual cases. 

It came as the UK Government's evacuation flight landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire this afternoon containing 83 Britons who now face two weeks of quarantine on the Wirral.   





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