A Bible school and Christian holiday center in the United Kingdom has quarantined six students and a teacher who returned from a trip to Italy, which is suffering an outbreak of coronavirus. Several schools in the country are closing or sending pupils home over fears of infection.
Capernwray Hall in Lancashire said it was nothing more than a precautionary measure as the students and the teacher came back after working with a partner church in Milan, which is 40 miles from the lockdown areas in northern Italy.
“We are not worried but we wanted to take extra caution and that is why the decision was made, as a cautionary measure not due to concern,” Capernwray’s managing director, Jonathan Halsey, told Premier. “None of the people have had any symptoms of Coronavirus.”
The returning team was housed in a separate accommodation on the Capernwray campus, about 500 meters away from the main hall.
At least 19 confirmed cases of coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, have been reported in the U.K., whose Foreign Office has advised against “all but essential travel” to 11 locked-down towns at the center of the Italian outbreak.
At least eight schools whose students made half-term trips to Italy have closed across the country, from Middlesborough, North Yorkshire, to Harlow in Essex, The Times (of London) reported.
An additional 19 schools have also told students and staff who have visited Italy to stay at home.
As more than 50 countries have reported cases of coronavirus, the World Health Organization has upgraded the global risk of the outbreak to “very high,” according to BBC.
However, WHO clarified that there was still a chance of containing the virus if its chain of transmission were broken.
SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar
All Content & Images are provided by the acknowledged source