UK Government’s Action Plan for Coronavirus published

The UK Government’s Action Plan for Coronavirus has been published today (03/03/2020). 
​https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-action-plan

IIt provides useful information about the disease and the phased approach that the Government will implement if and when the disease becomes established in the UK. Essentially the three phases are:
 
Contain:

• detect early cases, follow up close contacts, and prevent the disease taking hold in this country for as long as is reasonably possible

 
Delay:

• slow the spread in the UK, if it does take hold, lowering the peak impact and pushing it away from the winter season

 
Mitigate:

• provide the best care possible for people who become ill, support hospitals to maintain essential services and ensure ongoing support for people ill in the community to minimise the overall impact of the disease on society, public services and on the economy.

 
These phases will be under pinned by ongoing research to better understand the virus and the actions that will lessen its effect on the UK population; innovate responses including diagnostics, drugs and vaccines; use the evidence to inform the development of the most effective models of care.While the measures being implemented currently span the Contain and Delay phases (ie., advice to wash hands) we are generally in the contain phase at the moment.

In the document, the actions that the Government will be take next are reasonably general, but it is worth noting that the next step in the Delay phase includes “Actions that would be considered could include population distancing strategies (such as school closures, encouraging greater home working, reducing the number of large scale gatherings) to slow the spread of the disease throughout the population, whilst ensuring the country’s ability to continue to run as normally as possible.” This will obviously directly impact some parts of the tourism industry.