Town on lockdown after holidaymaker brings coronavirus home

A Derbyshire town is in lockdown with a GP surgery shut, a primary school closed and residents too afraid to visit the shops because of a confirmed coronavirus case in a parent who is thought to have travelled to a hotel in Tenerife which has been paralysed by the killer infection.

The unidentified patient is believed to have a child at Burbage Primary School in Buxton, whose headteacher today announced it had shut for a 'deep clean' because one of the 'parent population' was infected.

It's thought they stayed at the four-star H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel in Tenerife, where hundreds of holidaymakers – including 160 Britons – are currently being quarantined because of an outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.
 

It comes as another man from Derbyshire stuck in same resort warned none of the Brits trapped in the seafront hotel ‘feel safe’. Others have begged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to rescue them in a 'Wuhan-style' evacuation. Ministers are understood to be discussing the idea.

Fears have now been raised that hundreds more Brits who stayed at the resort before a two-week quarantine was imposed could have caught the infection but have not yet been diagnosed.

The parent in Buxton was one of two confirmed cases announced today. Department of Health officials have refused to reveal where in Britain either patient is from – even though a GP surgery and two schools have been told one is in the town.

One elderly resident in the spa town, 30miles (48km) south of Manchester, today told MailOnline: 'I am about to go to the paper shop but whether I should, I don’t know.' A 25-year-old mother revealed she was scared for her children and admitted it was a 'very worrying time'.

The second case – who also hasn’t been identified – caught the virus in northern Italy, where an escalating crisis has left Britain and the rest of Europe engulfed with fear over an impending crisis.

More than 82,000 people across the world have caught the virus and 2,800 have died – Antarctica is the only continent yet to record a case. Fifteen cases have been confirmed on British soil but it has yet to spread between humans in the UK.

Coronavirus fears have now gripped the UK, with medics dressed in hazmat suits attending to patients. Growing fears have led to businesses sending workers home, sporting events postponed and schools – including Dulwich Prep, one of Britain's most prestigious private schools – being shut down.

Families have even resorted to panic buying nappies, toilet roll, soup, tinned fruit, pet food, medicine, bottled water and wine. Others have set up 'isolation' rooms at home.

Further afield, Germany and France today warned of the 'start of an epidemic', as Europe scrambles to contain a coronavirus outbreak spreading from Italy across the continent. Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland, Romania, North Macedonia, Greece, Norway and Georgia have all recorded their first cases in the last two days.





MailOnline