good afternoon. nhs officials are trying to trace people who had close contact with two chinese nationals diagnosed with the coronavirus. the two are being treated at a specialist unit in newcastle. one is a student at york university. elsewhere, 83 british people and 27 others evacuated from the chinese city of wuhan yesterday are spending

two weeks in quarantine at a hospital on the wirral. dan johnson reports. we are being looked after to the absolute maximum that anyone could possibly expect. meet matt, one of the 83 people spending the next fortnight here in quarantine. the windows, i think, fortnight here in quarantine. the windows, ithink, maybe fortnight here in quarantine. the windows, i think, maybe we can... yes, we can actually open the windows and get some fresh air. usually home to nurses, this is where families are being monitored on return from wuhan. there is an army of people here looking after us extremely well. they were driven to the world from raf brize norton last night. the coach company says the five drivers were told they didn't need protective clothing but they will have the next two weeks at home. in newcastle to chinese nationals from the same family are being treated in an isolation

facility at the royal victoria infirmary. one was a student at the university of york but it is thought they didn't show symptoms on campus. the hotel room where they fell ill is being disinfected and officials say they are making good progress tracing those in close contact with the pair. we haven't really got effective treatment for a novel virus like this yet. vaccine would be some way off. we haven't heard any discussion about antiviral drugs, as we had when we have had these kind of things before. and it comes down, really, to mobilising the public to be sensible, in terms of practical, common—sense, everyday measures. in china, the virus has now affected 12,000 people and 259 have died. some countries are banning chinese travellers and the world health organisation has declared an international emergency with more than 100 cases now in over

20 countries. they've brought us televisions... on the wirral, so far all is well. as far as we know, we are both to kitty and boo and in that order. but this isjust are both to kitty and boo and in that order. but this is just the start of a two—week wait. dan johnson, bbc news. the united kingdom is today beginning a new era outside the european union. the united kingdom is today beginning a new era outside the european union. at 11 o'clock last night, the legal ties which have bound britain to its european neighbours for almost five decades were cut. in a message released by downing street, borisjohnson said he wanted to unite the country and expressed the hope that the united kingdom is today beginning a new era outside brexit would mark a moment of national renewal. our political correspondent, helen catt, reports. there's no turning the clock back now. the uk became an ex—member of the european union at this moment. big ben chimes cheering in the shadow of the real big ben, some celebrated a long held dream. we should celebrate the fact that, freed from the constraints of the european union, we once again will be able

to find our place in the world. at holyrood, others sang to mark the moment they had hoped would never come. the fact of the matter is that the only way back into the european union for scotland is if we regain our statehood and regain our independence. and on the cliffs at ramsgate in kent, a message to our nearest neighbours. today one came back. in a letter on social media that starts "dear british friends," the french president, emmanuel macron, said the channel had never managed to separate our destinies — brexit will not do so either. so, what practical difference will we notice this morning? well, none. the uk is now in a transition period where we keep following eu laws until the end of december while the government negotiates a new relationship with europe. downing street wants it done in time for new rules to start next january.

despite warm words, the eu has made it clear negotiations are unlikely to be easy. europe has long experience of negotiating trade agreements and this is a peculiar one because normally in trade negotiations we are trying to come together. for the first time, we are going to try and negotiate a trade agreement where somebody wants to pull away from us. i can't get my head around that and i think it's going to be quite complicated. both sides are expected to set out their opening positions in the coming days. a new phase in uk history has started today. what it will bring will take a little longer to find out. helen catt, bbc news. donald trump is a step closer to being acquitted in the presidential impeachment trial after the senate voted against calling witnesses. he has been accused of abusing his power and obstructing congress. one senior democrat accused republicans of being accomplices to a presidential cover—up. from washington, chris buckler reports.

president trump left the white house to spend the weekend at his mar—a—lago resort in florida and he can afford to relax now after a vote that will cut short his impeachment trial. are there any senators in the chamber wishing to change his or her vote? if not, the yays are a9, the nays are 51. by the narrowest of margins, request to call witnesses was rejected, two republican senators voted with the democrats to hear potentially damaging testimony and demand documents but that was half the number they needed. if the president is acquitted with no witnesses, no documents, the acquittal will have no value. among the people who democrats wanted to call to give evidence wasjohn bolton, the white house's former security adviser. in a forthcoming book, it is claimed he says mr trump

told him of a plan to put pressure on the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky, with the specific aim of forcing him to launch investigations into mr trump's political opponents. but the president's lawyers insist that transcript of their phone calls show he did nothing wrong. let me read you what our ukrainian allies said. "it was normal. "we spoke about many things. "i think when you read it that nobody pushed me". senators will convene again on monday for closing arguments and, then, on wednesday for a final vote. it would take two thirds of the senate to convict mr trump and remove him from office. and across america everyone knows there is no chance of that happening. chris buckler, bbc news, washington. the six nations kicks off this afternoon. not the only sports to talk about, though! with all the sport now, here's jane dougall at the bbc sport centre. good afternoon.

it's the opening weekend of the six nations. tomorrow england play france in paris, later today scotland travel to ireland, but the first kick off is in cardiff as the holders wales begin the defense of their title against italy injust under an hour's time. let's go the principality where austin halewood is pitchside for us. austin, wales have a new head coach, which might make things more complicated for them 7 that's right. welcome to cardiff where the 2026 nations are about to begin. there is one hour until kick—off between the defending champions wales and italy on the principality staging right behind me here. there is a changing of the guard in welsh rugby at the moment. warren gatland, who was here head coach for 12 years, 12 very successful yea rs as coach for 12 years, 12 very successful years as well, he has now left and some big shoes to fill as well. their new head coach, this is his first game today in charge so it'll be interesting to see how he gets on but then the second game of the day takes place in ireland, they

have a new head coach of their own in andy farrell and they are taking on scotland in dublin but very much all eyes on cadre for the opening game in an hour's time. —— all eyes are on cardiff for the opening game in an hour's time. britain's jamie murray has lost in the mixed doubles final at the australian open. murray, along with his partner, bethanie mattek—sands, was going for an eighth grand slam title. meanwhile, the american sofia kenin has won the women's singles title, beating garbine muguruza. the first set went to the spaniard 6—4. but kenin fought back to take the second 6—2. she then went on to win the third set 6—2. 21—year—old kenin is the youngest to win the australian open in 12 years. great britain's women's basketball players are making an unexpected trip to serbia, hoping to qualify for the tokyo olympics on merit for the first time. the tournament was supposed to be in china, but was moved due to concerns over the coronavirus. the team feel success in belgrade could also breathe new life into their sport. david mcdaid has more.

for elite athletes, preparation is key and last—minute changes shunned. the gb‘s women, their trip to china has been more than welcome. my mum was, like, no, you're not going! this is a great opportunity we have andl this is a great opportunity we have and i didn't want this virus to stop us and i didn't want this virus to stop us from our goals. and the goal was to qualify on merit for the olympics, something no gb basketball tea m olympics, something no gb basketball team has managed before. getting to this point is all the more impressive as london 2012 gigabytes basketball had their funding cut, operating on a relative shoestring. we haven't got the support we deserve, really. just coaches in and out, changing different players, not getting paid at all, not having the right preparation time we need due to funding but we have always found a way, and that is the gb way and

thatis a way, and that is the gb way and that is doing what we have to do on court. on the court in belgrade the brits have already tasted success. last summer they enjoyed their best ever euro basket. she knocks it in for three! it is a two—point game. next week as well as fighting for the olympics, they feel they are fighting for the sport's very future in this country. we just want to keep gb alive. notjust for the players coming through but for the younger generation. we want them to have something to strive for, they can play at the high level, go to the olympics with gb, these are the dreams kids should have and we want them to have them. david mcdaid, bbc news. time to update you on the football, it is 0—0 between leicester city and chelsea in the early kick—off after a0 minutes. full updates on the bbc sport website. you can see more on all of today's

stories on the bbc news channel. hello, you're watching the bbc news channel. let's get more on brexit, as the uk is now out of the european union after a7 years of membership. the historic moment at 11 o'clock last night was marked by celebrations — and some commiserations — across the country. there will now be a transition period until the end of the year, during which the government will try to forge a new relationship with the eu. gavin lee is in malaga, gauging reaction. you lucky man! i take it that not a lot has changed there, because we

are saying that here not a lot has changed either. i'm quite often in brussels, so just to see the sun is quite incredible. my eyes aren't used to it. what is interesting is the phrase that nothing is different but everything has changed. that is what makes has told me. a lot of the british residents and others with interests here, there are fringe and 50,000 british residents who live across the spanish coastline, many hundreds of thousands with homes here. this is malaga and look at this, you can see why people want a place in the sun. there are 20,000 british residents in this time alone, a quarter of the population. one thing! alone, a quarter of the population. one thing i found fascinating was the real split, people with residency, you might expect, would

say they were for brexit and against brexit. there were people who had voted remain or felt they wanted to stay, they were happy limbo was over and they felt relieved. let's bring in michelle. she is the owner of this newspaper, the only expat newspaper here. give me your take on how you're feeling. nothing has changed. it is a little bit like new year's eve and new year's day. great anticipation, great and excitement, and then it is a damp squid. i think of the feeling is relief. that is the feeling. we has expats, i feel relief. one thing for residents to be aware of is thinking the same up until the end of the year, the spanish and uk governments are negotiating, they are saying to get your documents in order, there is no reason that can't continue. it is as

simple as that? time everything is we have had three years. our lives changed as expats on the 2ath of june 2016. we have had three years more or less. the spanish authorities, our government, they have all told us to get your papers in order. we have had enough time. there isn't any excuse for it. but there are still things we haven't tied down. pets, passports, wills, but we couldn't do everything. we still have things we need to iron out. let me ask you, do you think we re out. let me ask you, do you think were going to see a change in the number of people who are willing to come out to spain or more people going back with mike what you think? having spoken to my removal companies, is actually 50—50 at the moment. some people are going back, some expats are going back, but there are a whole new generation of people coming before it is too late.

the owner of euro weekly, thank you. a lot of the states in agency say there are reluctant british buyers here. the dutch are buying far more. they are diversifying their market and targeting elsewhere. imac it is and targeting elsewhere. imac it is a treat to be out of those darkened rooms in brussels. good to talk to. now let's revisit today's edition of your questions answered, where we tackled your queries about the coronavirus outbreak. it has been such a big developing story over the last few days, we thought this was an opportunity to us thought this was an opportunity to us to try to answer and get answers to some of the questions you have been sending into us here at bbc news. questions about the coronavirus and the likely spread.

hereto tackle the questions is professorjohn ashton. as a former director of public health england and president of the faculty of public health that sets standards for practitioners in the uk. thank you for being with us and for agreeing to have questions thrown at you from the audience. i know you will do your best to answer them. just before we start with the questions, you had some direct involvement with the public—health to sars. and i were in beijing on a who trip and one morning found a small english—language newspaper in the foyer of the hotel — just a small circulation — reporting the first cases of sars. it hadn't been known about. i faxed it back to the uk and when i got home, sometime later, i discovered it had never got further than the fax machine. but it was a couple of weeks before

the news broke about it. itjust gives you an indication, really, of the fact that news can travel slowly in a huge country like china with rural poverty and all the rest of it. that can be compounded by a reluctance to share information. the basis of managing an outbreak like this is good intelligence, good information and sharing it between countries so that other countries can be forewarned and forearmed. we will deal with some of those points as a result of these questions in the course of the next few minutes, but the first question i want to put to you is from roy, who asks, why do you think the people on the plane were brought all the way to the wirral when they could have been isolated, roy thinks, near where their flight originally landed? i think that is a question for whoever is in charge of this outbreak. it is a bit confusing, because it is not clear whether it is the secretary

of state, chief medical officer, people senior in the public health england, or the nhs. but somebody there needs to be in charge. they should be able to answer that question. i know here on the ground on the wirral people are very puzzled, not to mention concerned, about this. probably unnecessarily so. and one of the things that is needed in this situation is reassurance based on trust. but you don't get trust if you do not have clear lines of communication and consistency of message. i'm sorry to say, we are not really getting that at the moment. the wirral is, as you are aware, almost an island, sticking out into the irish sea, maybe that was the thinking about putting people here rather than in oxford. who knows, we could ask people at the centre why they have done this. thank you for your question, roy.

we have a question from nina who asks, what is likely to happen to the sort of facilities that people who have come in contact to on the way? i suppose nina is asking about the buses that have transported them all of the way up and presumably they will have to be isolated and so on and will they have to be deep—cleaned? is that sort of thing likely to happen? yes, deep clean. by chance, i visited a modern poultry farm and slaughterhouse for chickens last week in north wales. you saw the sort of deep cleaning of the vehicles that bring the poultry from the farms to the slaughterhouse there. you're talking about bio—security, biological material here, and my understanding is that this virus is actually quite fragile. it doesn't live all that long.

but proper cleaning, thorough cleaning, is a reassuring measure to take. and presumably, from our point of view as individuals, a few old—fashioned techniques won't be any harm if they make a bit of a comeback. spending a bit longer with soap and water after every visit to the bathroom, that sort of thing. this is the crux of this. with these kind of infections, with flu—like illnesses, with influenza itself, with this virus, the basis of this has to be good personal hygiene, people not spreading it if they think they might have it. confining themselves to the house, not turning up at the health centre or a&e and breeding over other people, using public transport, ——breathing over other people. and yes, i am afraid,

personal hygiene in this country is not good. a third of people don't wash their hands when they have been to the lavatory. it is a question of actually getting people to wash their hands properly with soap and water and washing them as a surgeon would — getting in between the fingers, spending long enough with the soap and water to get thoroughly clean and just general common—sense measures. that has got to be the basis of this. you cannot handle an illness of this kind, which may affect a lot of people, by everyone turning up at the health services. i think we also have to reassure people that really, the overwhelming majority of people who have come in contact with this virus won't suffer serious harm. steering that path between being responsive, concerned, taking measures and panic... and i'm afraid there is an element of panic going on, but steering that path is what is needed. that needs to be based on good intelligence,

and good communications and having people speaking to the public who can be trusted. and we need more of that. thank you, stay with us. i want to put a question to you, why were the coach driver is not winning any protection? —— wearing any protection. worn, for example, by the people who are meeting the people arriving back on the flight and checking whether they were showing any signs of infection. that is an understandable question. by the time people were allowed

to get as far as the coach, it would be my expectation they would be checked and showing no symptoms and as you have pointed out the containment clothing, the barrier clothing the professionals wore as they greeted those travellers would be extremely destructive and i would expect very dangerous for driving. if these people are not obviously infectious at this stage, it would be, i think, at this point to risk their lives by compromising the capacity of the drivers to drive them safely. we spoke to the bus company and they said part of the confusion may be one of the medics in the hazard suit had inadvertently got on the bus, when at that point they were not needed because passengers had already been checked and were not showing the symptoms and had they been able to have been kept

where they were not allowed onto the bus to be transported. do you have any thoughts on sending them that far from oxfordshire to the wirral, rather than isolating more quickly? my only thought is i am sure they have been placed in a situation where the facilities were available for the capacity of people arriving at the time, over 80 people. that, ithink, is bigger than the capacity of most wards, so it is where the availability was actually to house people safely and with the appropriate support locally for containment to deal with the symptoms should they arise. larry asks, should he be concerned about mail coming from china?

we are dealing with a number of unknowns with this particular form of coronavirus, but what we can say about other coronaviruses is that they do not tend to survive all that long outside of the body of the patient and the fluids that transmit these diseases. other coronaviruses which we know of lose viability after around 24 hours, and whilst i can appreciate why our listener is asking that question, i do not anticipate that mail from china is going to be a problematic route for infection. professor ashton, is in anything you want to add? i would agree with that.

could the coronavirus pose any risk to her unborn baby? i have no reason to believe that this virus has any particular threat but it an unknown situation. so again, at is about being careful, being wary and if it is circulating in the community, just make sure that you keep away from somebody who might be transmitting it. to my knowledge, there is no evidence this is a particular threat to the unborn. you were talking about sars, how dangerous is coronavirus compared to other viruses like sars and even the ordinary flu?

at this stage, we do not know. we will be able to say that when it is all over. when we have had these kind of things before, sars and swine flu, we were concerned that we might have on our hands something like the spanish flu that followed the first world war in 1919 which killed millions of people who had not been exposed previously to a new virus. we know now that in some ways that was partly because we had an international population that had suffered four or five years of war, malnutrition, was susceptible and so on. and generally speaking with these viruses that have not been around before, it is people

who are vulnerable that tend to become the casualties. the case fatality data from china, the number of people who die from this virus is running at about 2%, they are likely to be very elderly people who are vulnerable, near the end of their life anyway, and to have gone on to get complications, perhaps pneumonia. the message of this is that this is not something we should be panicking about, but what we should be doing is being sensible and making sure we are looking after ourselves. and in a general way, people doing the things we encourage them to do all the time which is eat well and get a decent night's sleep and build up the resistance generally to dealing with the sort of infections that come round every winter. remembering that between mid—december and the end of february every year in england,

there is about 30,000 deaths from viruses causing pneumonia and vulnerable and elderly people. how dangerous do you think this is? i agree with everything professor ashton just said, to add to that, the world health organization have declared the state a temporary state of international emergency around this disease because the people at risk, as we just heard, are those who already have a compromised immune system for some reason. in our country that would be the high—risk groups would be the elderly, people with diabetes and asthma and conditions which give them a compromised immune response. this is actually more complicated any developing world, so the quarantine situation as a vital to be implemented particularly for travellers to lower and middle income countries