HIGH ALERT
Coronavirus: British Airways halts ALL flights to China over killer bug outbreak
BRITISH Airways has halted all its flights to and from China as the coronavirus death toll continues to rise.
It comes as the Government rushed to finalise plans to evacuate Brits from the outbreak epicentre of Wuhan - with sources saying all evacuees will be quarantined for TWO weeks.
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“We have suspended all flights to and from mainland China with immediate effect following advice from the Foreign Office against all but essential travel," said British Airways spokeswoman.
“We apologise to customers for the inconvenience, but the safety of our customers and crew is always our priority.”
The Government has advised against "all but essential" travel to mainland China due to the coronavirus outbreak.
German airline Lufthansa has followed suit and suspended all flights to and from China.
Experts have warned the deadly bug will become a worldwide pandemic if governments do not impose heavy global travel bans.
The death toll from the virus has risen to 132 as the number of infections surges to nearly 6000.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said officials are trying to contact Brits living in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the largest city, to organise an evacuation.
People coming back will be told to "self-isolate" and stay indoors for 14 days, but there are no plans to forcibly quarantine them.
A British teacher living in Wuhan, who asked not to be named, said the evacuation could begin as early as Thursday.
So far there have been 97 people tested in the UK for the virus and dramatic video shows the moment hazmat wearing paramedics quarantine a suspected patient in Birmingham.
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The Foreign Office has said Brits in China should "make decisions based on their own personal circumstances" over whether to leave other parts of the country, and the British embassy in Beijing has said transport to get UK citizens out "may happen quickly and with short notice".
Fears have been raised over a rise in coronavirus cases in patients who've never been to China.
Four cases have been confirmed in Germany, making it the second European country to report cases, after France.
Vietnam was the first country to report a positive coronavirus case spread to a person who hasn't been to China, the World Health Organisation confirmed at the weekend.
Since then there have been further cases of domestic human-to-human transmission in patients in Germany, Taiwan and Japan.
The virus has spread across China and to at least 16 countries globally after the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan.
The first death, that of a 50-year-old man, has now been recorded in Beijing with the rest in Hubei province, near Wuhan
The youngest case is a nine-year-old girl, also in capital Beijing.
So far there have been no reported deaths from coronavirus outside of China.
British Airway's decision comes after the Hong Kong government halted trains and halved the number of flights to the mainland.
China's increasingly drastic containment efforts began with the suspension of plane, train and bus links to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people.
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That lockdown has expanded to 17 cities with more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease-control measures ever imposed.
Experts from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said tests proved humans first caught the bug from animals sold at Huanan Seafood Market.
Snakes, rats, beavers, wolf cubs and even koalas are regularly slaughtered to order at the market.
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