Coronavirus news: One UK patient confirmed as York student as US declares national emergency as nearly 12,000 infected globally
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Britain is withdrawing its Foreign Office staff from China hours after dozens of UK nationals were evacuated from the city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak.
They arrived at a hospital in Merseyside on Friday, where they will spend 14 days in quarantine.
Their arrival came as the UK’s first cases of the new disease were confirmed, with health officials urgently trying to trace those who came into contact with two people diagnosed with the virus.
Meanwhile, China’s death toll from the new virus rose to 259 on Saturday, with the number of confirmed cases reaching 11,791, surpassing the number in the 2002-2003 Sars outbreak.
Vietnam has declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus and banned all flights to and from China.
The government said it would also stop issuing visas for foreign visitors who had been in China in the past two weeks.
All permits granted for flights between Vietnam and China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau have been revoked until further notice, the government said in a statement.
Qatar Airways has become the first Middle Eastern airline to ban all flights to China.
Drone footage shows the streets of Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, are almost empty as the city remains under lockdown.
Satellite images also showed a Wuhan almost bereft of cars and people.
A British citizen who has remained in coronavirus-hit Wuhan to be with his wife and family is worried he will be forgotten by the government.
The Foreign Office has said it will have "limited" ability to help Britons in China after it made the decision to withdraw all but essential staff from the country.
Chris Hill, 38, is one of the Britons who has chosen to remain in the country where he lives with his wife, Caitlyn Gao, and daughter, Renee Gao, who are both Chinese citizens.
He told the PA news agency: "My only worry now is after everybody pulls out the FCO will forget about those who are staying and not give any support for us."
Mr Hill added: "For British nationals that are staying in Wuhan, but also in China, to have the consulate and embassy evacuating, it's not a good sight to see really, is it?
"My concerns would basically be that they're going to completely write off China in the long run. Even though they say that they are trying, it's also a fear that with pulling all the staff out, they're just going to go 'out of sight, out of mind' kind of thing."
Mr Hill, who is from Sunderland, said he received a call from the FCO on Saturday morning saying he, his wife and daughter would be able to get on an evacuation plane bound for France.
But his wife is unable to leave because she works as a nurse at a hospital and is also unwilling to abandon her parents.
"I am not willing to leave her behind and take my daughter," Mr Hill said. "It's either we all go or we all stay in Wuhan, which I told the FCO officer and she was shocked at my answer but respected my choice to not break up the family."
He added: "Family is very important to me so it wasn't really a hard choice."
Nearly 10,000 flights have been suspended since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, according to travel and data analytics firm Cirium, illustrating concerns about a slowdown in economic activity in China and elsewhere.
Infections have jumped in two cities flanking Wuhan, raising concerns that new hot spots are emerging despite strict travel restrictions.
In one of them, Huanggang, authorities are requiring households to designate one individual who can leave the home, a local newspaper said. The city has a population of about 7.5 million.
The northern city of Tianjin, with a population of about 15 million, suspended all schools and businesses until further notice, joining other cities across China in implementing measures aimed at curbing the spread of the pathogen.
The Department of Health said no further positive cases of coronavirus had been confirmed in the UK as of 2pm today.
A total of 203 people have now been tested in the UK, with 201 results coming back negative and two positive.
China's Hubei provincial government has extended the Lunar New Year holiday break to 13 February as it seeks to limit the coronavirus outbreak, which emerged from the province's capital Wuhan, the Hubei Daily has reported.
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