Primary school in Buxton to remain closed after confirmed case of coronavirus
A primary school in Buxton will remain closed today, after a parent of a pupil at the school returned from a trip to Tenerife with coronavirus.
It brings the total number of confirmed cases in the UK to 16 after the first case of coronavirus was diagnosed in Northern Ireland and two in England, including the case in Buxton.
The two patients in England were transferred to specialist NHS infection centres after contracting the virus in Italy and Tenerife.
The cases were confirmed after parents of pupils at Burbage Primary School in Buxton, Derbyshire, were told the school would be closed on Thursday due to a "confirmed case of coronavirus amongst our parent population".
Burbage Primary School, in Buxton, which has 350 pupils, sent a message to parents via WhatsApp on Wednesday night saying the decision had been taken as a "precautionary measure and to enable a deep clean to be completed".
The parent who tested positive for the virus is understood to have caught the disease whilst on holiday in Tenerife.
Public Health England said that its general advice is not to close schools - a message echoed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Travellers returning to the UK from northern Italy were told they may need to self-isolate as part of measures to stop the spread of illness.
The Foreign Office has advised against all but essential travel to 10 towns in Lombardy (Codogno, Castiglione d'Adda, Casalpusterlengo, Fombio, Maleo, Somaglia, Bertonico, Terranova dei Passerini, Castelgerundo and San Fiorano) and one in Veneto (Vo'Euganeo).
And officials denied there were any plans to evacuate the Britons at the hotel in Tenerife, instead arranging for written messages to be put under the doors of the rooms of British guests asking them to get in contact.
So far in the UK more than 7,000 people have been tested for the virus and of the 15 to have tested positive, eight have so far been discharged from hospital.
In China, where the virus originated, has reported a total of 78,497 cases, including 2,744 deaths. Outside China, there were 3,651, cases including 50 deaths.
After Brazil confirmed Latin America's first case on Wednesday, the virus has reached every continent except Antarctica.