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The Department of Health classified the novel coronavirus (named by the World Health Organization Covid-19) as a ‘serious and imminent threat’ to public health so that, under the 1984 Public Health (Control of Disease) Act, quarantine could be made compulsory. There were 93 British citizens in quarantine at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral and 105 from a later evacuation flight in a conference centre in Milton Keynes. Steve Walsh, a gas salesman from Hove in East Sussex, was found to have picked up the virus in Singapore and unwittingly infected 11 people at a French ski resort. One of them was a locum GP at the County Oak medical centre in Brighton, which was temporarily closed. British Airways cancelled flights to and from Beijing and Shanghai until 31 March.
The government announced that the HS2 rail project, with a high-speed line from London to Birmingham (due for completion by 2031) and branches from there to Manchester and Leeds (for completion by 2040), would go ahead. ‘The cost forecasts have exploded, but poor management to date has not detracted from the fundamental value of the project,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told parliament. The cost estimated by the Oakervee review is £106 billion. The government promised £5 billion over the next five years to improve bus services and cycle routes in England. Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said that on 1 January 2021, at the end of the Brexit transition period, ‘We will have to be ready for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow.’ Downing Street said work was being done ‘by a range of government officials’ on the idea of building a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland. A storm swept over Britain, flooding hundreds of houses and leaving thousands without electricity.
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