The PM has said everyone in the UK should avoid “non-essential” travel and contact with others to curb coronavirus – as the country’s death toll hit 55.
Boris Johnson said people should work from home where possible as part of a range of stringent new measures.
Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice “particularly important”, he said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons the number of people to have died with the virus in England had risen to 53 – and “the disease is now accelerating”.
The first death in Wales, and a death in Scotland, brings the total number of deaths in the UK to 55.
In the first of a series of daily briefings on the virus, the prime minister – alongside the government’s chief scientific and medical advisers – said the key new measures are as follows:
- Everyone should avoid gatherings and crowded places
- By next weekend, those with the most serious health conditions must be “largely shielded from social contact for around 12 weeks”
- The UK is now “three weeks” behind Italy – the worst-hit country in Europe
- If one person in any household has a persistent cough or fever, everyone living there must stay at home for 14 days. Those people should, if possible, avoid leaving the house “even to buy food or essentials”
- Schools will not be closed for the moment
Mr Johnson said “drastic action” was needed as the UK approaches “the fast growth part of the upward curve” in the number of cases.
“We are in a war against an invisible killer,” Mr Hancock said, adding that emergency legislation to tackle the virus would be introduced to Parliament on Thursday.
