Health minister and Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has been self-isolating after she tested positive for coronavirus. The MP showed symptoms the day she attended an event hosted by the Prime Minister.

According to recent updates, UK has recorded a total of 382 positive cases with 6 deaths due to the novel COVID 19 virus.

Last Friday, Dorries took ill after she attended a reception with Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Downing Street to mark International Women’s Day reported the Times newspaper.

The 62-year-old has isolated herself after being diagnosed with the virus on Tuesday.

In a statement released by the department, she said: “I can confirm I have tested positive for coronavirus. As soon as I was informed, I took all the advised precautions and have been self-isolating at home.”

Dorries, who began her career as a nurse thanked PHE and the NHS staff for their “advice and support,” and said that Public Health England (PHE) had started screening sessions for the people she had been in contact with.

The MP for Mid Bedfordshire tweeted after her diagnosis: “Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.”

Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.

— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) March 10, 2020

NHS chief scientific officer Prof Dame Sue Hill said the health service was pooling resources to cope with new cases.

“Every hospital across the country, and the healthcare professionals who run them, are now actively planning to respond flexibly to manage new demand,” he said.

While PHE has not yet asked to suspend the parliament, it did advise Labour MP Rachael Maskell to self-isolate “as a result of a meeting” she had with Dorries last week.

“NHS111 have advised that I self-isolate as a result of a meeting I had with [Dorries] last Thursday who has subsequently tested positive for coronavirus,” she tweeted.

“Thankfully I am asymptomatic. It is so important that we all follow all public health advice.”

The UK is seeing a rise in the cases of “community spread”– where someone who hasn’t travelled to an affected area or interacted with a patient, tests positive.

Professor Chris Whitty, the country’s chief medical officer said it was now “highly likely” that the infection was being transmitted across the UK by people who haven’t travelled.

Government measures to contain the virus

UK Prime Minister released his 4-stage action plan for tackling the crisis, which include: contain, delay, research, and mitigate. The UK has entered stage two.

According to the action plan, “Action 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 disease throughout the population.”

The latest death recorded in the UK was of a man in his 80s being treated at Watford General Hospital for underlying conditions.

However, the Prime Minister maintains the condition is not so dire to place UK citizens under a lockdown, reported Business Insider.

 “We need to strike a balance,” Johnson told ITV’s Good Morning programme on Thursday,

 “Slightly counter-intuitively, closing schools and stopping big gatherings doesn’t work as well as people think.

 “As far as possible it should be business as usual for the vast majority of the people.”

• Read: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a ‘global public health emergency’

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