this is bbc news. the headlines at seven. another 12 people in the uk test positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 35. the prime minister has been visiting public health england. coronavirus is of concern. it is a novel illness, but it is something that this country really calmly amply has the resources to deal with. state—of—the—art testing facilities. a fantastic nhs. we will have to get through this, but believe me we are going to be tight. —— beat it. borisjohnson says he has "confidence" in his home secretary priti patel, who faces allegations

from her departing civil service chief that she bullied staff. greek authorities have been using tear gas as clashes intensify with migrants on the border with turkey, they say they've already stopped almost 10,000 from entering. in the u.s., democratic presidential candidate joe biden wins his first primary in south carolina — boosting his chances of being his party's candidate to take on donald trump in november's election. and coming up in half an hour, sportsday will bring you all the latest reaction to manchester city winning the carabao cup for the third consecutive season — they beat aston villa 2—1 at wembley. good evening. the prime minister has said the coronavirus is likely to spread more throughout the uk, mrjohnson comments come following a significant increase in the number of people who tested

positive for the virus, with 12 new cases in england. the health secretary has said the government could take emergency powers to close schools and cancel large public events if the spread of the disease can't be contained. the total number of cases in the uk is now 35. in the past hour, health officials in italy say the number of people infected hasjumped toi,700. the virus, a respiratory disease, which causes pneumonia—like symptoms has infected 87,161 people in 60 countries. on a visit to public health england, the prime minister said that the virus is likely to spread here in the uk, and spoke about the government's preparations. it is vital that people understand that we do have a great plan, a plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus. iam very to tackle the spread of coronavirus. i am very confident, that in the nhs, we have the professionals that

will well be able to cope with it. we have the testing systems that we need. a way of triaging people who are coming back into this country who may have been in contact with coronavirus. i want to repeat the key m essa g e coronavirus. i want to repeat the key message needs to hear. repetitive though it may be. the best way that we can help the nhs, help ourselves to stop the spread of the illness is to wash our hands. it is that it is 20 seconds, two times a happy birthday i'm told, with hot water and soap. washing hands. you are sharing a cobra meeting at two mile enough? many cobra meetings in the course of the last two days. ever since the outbreak began. i am

confident that this country has the capacity to deal with it. what we are saying, is that we will be sending out various measures as the disease progresses, if it progresses the way it may. we will be in setting up in various measures that we think the public should be responding. we are sending that out tomorrow, or the next day. but the crucial thing, the public does what it can. we all can to stop the spread ourselves. no tactics off the table when it comes to containment. can he tell more about what those tactics are? i don't want to go now into the kinds of things that might be necessary, but you can imagine obviously there will be questions that we will need to consider about very bad public offence, that kind

of thing continuation of... should schools continue to operate? my feelings they should as far as possible. i did not want kids sent home unnecessarily. that is certainly where public health is at the moment. i think it is the right thing to do. the crucial thing for the public to understand, coronavirus is a concern, it is a novel illness, but something that this country really, amply has the resources to deal with. we have state—of—the—art testing facilities, a fantastic nhs, we will have to get through this but believe me we are telling to beat it. boris johnson speaking during to a visit to a public health england laboratory in north london this afternoon. well, two with more on the impact the coronavirus is already having here in the uk, our health editor, hugh pym reports.

0ne one of two schools which will be closed tomorrow because members of staff tested positive for the coronavirus. this infant school and berkshire, parents are told they won't open until they are certain it is safe. the task now is checking up on those who were close contact with the individual who is now in hospital. we know exactly who this member of staff and has been in contact with, public health and glenn are now in the process of getting hold of all of these people and making sure that their health is and making sure that their health is a factor properly. three of the latest cases are thought to be linked to a man in testing positive last week. the rest of the 35 so tightness in the uk, are different parts of the country. these are sapphire isolated individual cases. the government is considering plans to bring retired doctors and nurses back into the nhs if cases spread.

i'll secretary said he has not ruled out significant restrictions on everyday life. we did not take anything off the table at the state. because it's got to make sure that you have all of the tools available if that is what is necessary. i want to minimise the social and economic describe —— disruption. at this stage we still have the hope all the numbers are rising fast, we had the help we can avoid this outbreak. possible measures of schools closers, large public events including sport, and encouraging people to work at home. for now people to work at home. for now people are urged to call the nhs of one mud one helpline if they have symptoms having returned in the verse affected countries. 50%jump in call volume last week. 50% jump in call volume last week. let's bring you some of the latest developments of the virus. the foreign office has announced that

all but essential staff will be withdrawn from the british embassy in iran due to the outbreak. the louvre museum did not open today due to staff concerns of infection. and around 200 britons quarantined in tenerife will be allowed to fly home if they test negative for the virus, as our correspondent fiona trott explains. the latest i can tell you is that some british guests from this hotel had been locked in the hotel since tuesday, sms of them, will had been locked in the hotel since tuesday, some of them, will definitely be flying back to the uk tonight. is that we here at the ground at the moment. there have been challenges for them this afternoon. as he mentioned, they were hopeful, that a who are tested and got negative and at that airport they did not show symptoms, they could get a flight back to the uk. it have to be back in a 2k hour period.

it can be carried for that time but it could not be transmitted. if the flight was more than 2a hours after the test they would have to be tested at the end. would have to be tested again. that would delay things even more. but what we were hearing from two guests by telephone and from inside the hotel is that one and then had a pass at a:00pm yesterday they got the result two o'clock today that was negative. another person said he had his task three o'clock yesterday and is do to get his results at one o'clock. he is still waiting for that test results. it is only two cases out of more than 200 guests here at this hotel, but if it is indication of how the process is working, it certainly doesn't appear as though it is happening as quickly as they are needed to get back on the flight and get back to the uk. 0ne gas does describe the situation as unbearable and people inside the hotel are

beginning to lose their patients. yes they are hearing that some will be coming back to the uk tonight, we don't know how many, and has been very challenging for them. when they get it back, they will have to self—isolate and help march the 9th. globally one of the countries struggling to deal with the outbreak is south korea. the leader of a religious sect there is under investigation for failing to co—operate with efforts to contain coronavirus. there are more than 3 thousand 700 confirmed cases, and 22 deaths so far. authorities say members of the fringe christian group the shincheonji church ofjesus infected one another in the southern city of daegu last month, before fanning out around the country. more than 9,000 thousand of its members are now thought to be showing symptoms of the disease. 0ur seoul correspondent, laura bicker, has been speaking to one of the church leaders.

the army has been deployed to deal with south korea's latest threat. they are battling at this virus with disinfectant. as more cases are confirmed, it appears this is a war they are not winning. a lot of public anger has been aimed at this secretive religious sect. the infection has spread rapidly among the followers of this church of jesus. as officials raced to tracy outbreak, its leaders hit names of members. now they are being accused of murder. in a rare interview the church denied all charges. translation: we feel very sorry for causing concern and worry to the people of korea and the world. i understand people criticise us, but

better than point fingers, we think what is more important is to end the situation and to make sure that no more confirmed cases come out. meanwhile the hospitals had been overwhelmed and three people have died while waiting for a bed. translation we cannot those who have systems in had to stay at home and get treated. we should change or goal to lower death rates. those fear that had the virus are lining at to be tested. these drive—through clinics speed up the process. south korea is using every resource that has and still disinfection continues to spread. the deceit is, south korea. the deceit is, south korea.

yesterday president trump announced that america had its first death from the coronavirus and confirmed 22 cases. we can now speak to professor linda safe from ohio state university in the united states. she's an award—winning virologist, who's speciality is the coronavirus studying it for more than a0 years. it's very new to a lot of us, how is the public in the united states reacted to the first fatality? thank you for the opportunity to speak. i think it has been a wake—up call for the american public that now we do have the disease that has a potential to spread and has the potential to spread and has the potential to spread and has the potential to kill people. before there was some complacency but now i think having a death occur here says the virus is real and the virus can cause a number of gaps once it spreads. how much is this story is

preoccupying the media? we hear every night on the news, as well as specials on cnn, and other stations including local radio stations about this interviewing experts, trying to understand how this virus spreads, and what to do to control it. what extent and what to do to control it. what exte nt d o and what to do to control it. what extent do you believe that the symptoms of coronavirus have led to that spreading faster and more widely than perhaps other similar viruses? what was discovered, is that it still thought that this virus came from the animals eventually made the wild animals, this verse is not known but maybe bats still another animal and then into china. so when discovery at the pa rt into china. so when discovery at the part that interacts with the receptor on the host cell, of the

virus, back when shown to have a unique way to bind with a view centre on the host cell, and it gives much better, higher affinity to bind to them. guess it this might be one reason this virus became at the and has been able to spread efficiently mountain from human—to—human. the side, is that there are likely side infections. if you do not know that you are clinically infected with the virus and you have not been tested, then in theory you could spend to other people before you even have symptoms. this is a major problem now, especially in this community spread. where there are people that are not yet selling symptoms, but are not yet selling symptoms, but are possibly spreading the virus. we

have seen that mass containment exercises and placed in china, cruise ships and the one injapan, we also are watching as people try to be the canary islands who has been stuck in a hotel often feeling quite put out about it. in the united states, how good of a job by the authorities doing the disease control authorities doing so far? they are prepared plans in place that had been put in place after sars, and after some in the us. i think there is some public health preparedness through the us in her degree —— disease control. 0ther agencies handling —— heavily involved are state agencies, public health agencies and large cities, and also universities. ijust saw

the fda announced today, hospitals state agencies, universities, and even private labs can be involved in testing for the coronavirus. so that will allow many more people to be tested, to really find out how widespread this virus is. how far away, do you believe scientists are from finding some kind of treatment 01’ some from finding some kind of treatment or some kind of prevention that can be rolled out? there is a doctor at the director of the us national institute of allergy and infectious disease, as indicated that the first preliminary scene going into a few human safety preliminary scene going into a few hu ma n safety tests, preliminary scene going into a few human safety tests, but even from there it is three months until they dear the first clinical trials and

then he suggested it could be at least a year before a vaccine could be manufactured and widely available. in the meantime, let many countries including china, has been doing is trying to be purpose licence antivirals. they are looking at how well and clinical trials in china the inhibitors used to block hiv infections, will work and coronavirus patients. there are several new antivirals that were tried for other biases that were not effective but are now some of those are thought to be effective against mers and said they are going to try this. there are lots and lots of universities researching as well and is in the industry that are trying

to look at a bylined generics approach. and see if any of these might use it from an antivirals from sars. in the meantime also being worked on for sars and mers, was to develop antibodies that could block the virus from infecting cells in the virus from infecting cells in the body. said these could be shorter—term remedies, that can be developed quite quickly. having potential licence lines antivirals that i really prove and re—practicing bellows would make this process much more rapid. more greatly and available to others if any of these work. today the clinical trials is about three to six months for this. prof safe thank you so much for your time. a privilege to hear your expertise here on bbc news thank you for joining us.

and we'll find out how this story —— and many others —— are covered in tomorrow's front pagesat 10:30 and 11:30 this evening in the papers. our guests joining me tonight are mo hussein, the former conservative special adviser to amber rudd when she was home secretary, and bonnie greer, who's a columnist for the new european and byline times. the prime minister has defended the home secretary, priti patel after claims made by her departing permanent secretary, that she bullied staff. ms patel has reissued denials in response to newspaper reports, but has not publicly commented on allegations made by sir philip rutnam. labour has asked the home secretary to come to parliament to address the matter. and today, the bbc has learned another formal complaint was made against her. 0ur political correspondent iain watson has the latest. labour are trying to ratch up the pressure on priti patel. the labour leadership candidate kier starmer has called for her to make a statement to mps in parliament tomorrow about these allegations of bullying made

by the former most senior official in her department, sir philip rutnam. in addition to that, the shadow chancellor, john mcdonnell, has said there should be an enquiry into priti patel‘s behaviour and during that enquiry she should be suspended from the home office. and the bbc has been told that there was a formal complaint about priti patel‘s behaviour, not at the home office, but when she was an employment ministerfour years ago. her spokesman says he has no knowledge, indeed she has no knowledge of that complaint, and we do not know if it was pursued, but clearly there are people willing to pile on the pressure on the home secretary, so she will be relieved that some of the pressure appears to now be coming off her position because borisjohnson has given her his full backing this evening and made it very clear that she still has a big job to do as home secretary. i absolutely do have confidence in priti patel, i think she's a fantastic home secretary. it is never an easyjob, anybody who has been home secretary will testify that that is one

of the toughest jobs in government and there is a big task ahead of us now, we are delivering at last a new immigration system for this country, a points—based immigration system, that will take a lot of work by the home office, a fantastic department and by the way, i want to make one thing absolutely clear, i am full of admiration for our civil service and the job that they do. we politicians could not begin to accomplish things without fantastic, absolutely brilliant alpha minds in the civil service, and we depend on them. so, i think an interesting contribution from the prime minister on two fronts, not simply that full confidence in priti patel, but also making it very clear, in effect the home office has the responsibility for carrying out key parts of the manifesto that he stood on, 20,000 more police officers, that new points—based immigration system, so if the home office fails, then the government as a whole may

find it far more difficult to hold on to its promises, the promises it made during that election campaign, and i think for that reason, the prime minister is not keen to see any further disturbance at the top of that department. he would be very reluctant to move the home secretary, but also interesting that he took time to praise the civil service and civil servants who he recognises are absolutely essential in delivering that agenda so he is making it very clear he does not want a continuing war of words in whitehall, he does not want this battle to continue even though the former permanent secretary, the most senior official at the home office, has departed. so to some extent, some conciliatory language towards the civil service but also making it clear to priti patel that despite opposition pressure for her to go, he is in no rush to see her leave office at this stage. greece says it has stopped almost 10,000 migrants crossing over the land border from turkey, which is struggling to deal with the number of people fleeing syria's civil war. the growing crisis comes

after an airstrike in syria killed at least 33 turkish soldiers deployed to support the syrian opposition. turkey's president has said he will break his country's deal with brussels, to prevent migrants entering the eu, unless he gets greater support for his intervention in syria. 0rla guerin reports from the turkey and greece border. at first light, theyjoined the migrant trail from turkey. heading for the river meric, all that separates them from europe. this small group manages to cross, reaching the shores of greece, which fears a new flood of refugees. at border crossings with turkey, it's been pushing them back. greece doesn't want a repeat of 2015. caught up in the chaos this afternoon, reza, an iranian we met who

hopes to reach london. they're pushing us by water. tear gas. it's not fair. and the young have been in the firing line, like one—year—old yashar, whose family is from afghanistan. "the greeks shot at us and threw tear gas at him," says his father, zaman. "he could have died." but for turkey, which has been sheltering almost 4 million syrians, the refugees are now human bargaining chips being used to put pressure on europe. well, families are still arriving here, and they're not coming by accident. they are being encouraged to travel by the turkish authorities, led to believe that they can enter europe. instead, they're stuck here with no way to cross into greece, and they and their children are having to camp out in the cold. and this is what awaits

them now at the border. a battleground. greece says it won't allow a free for all. turkey says it's overwhelmed by refugees. it is determined that europe will share the fallout from syria's long and brutal war. 0rla guerin, bbc news, on the turkey—greece border. storm jorge is bringing heavy rain and strong winds to the uk today, causing yet more disruption to flood—hit areas. dozens of flood warnings are still in place across england, wales and scotland, meaning immediate action is required. this time the brunt of the severe weather is expected to be borne by the south west and yorkshire, as well as parts of wales. 0ur reporter 0livia richwald reports now from east yorkshire. the floodwater in each calendar is not to waist deep. it is

contaminated with sewage, oil, and by this. the village landed on friday and the water hasn't receded. 65 homes here are flooded and residents had borrowed this canoe to help their neighbours retreat valuables. i did get a chance to know some things before but i put some things in the left which i thought better if i get away. the agency has deployed 36 pumps reliving 5000 l every second. but residents are angry and feel their village has been sacrificed to save more popular spaces. the environment agency says it is doing all that it can, and the flooding here is now stable. the labels are still high, are talking at least days and possibly longer. the plan is to get water off the wash lens, back into the river for that we need to river levels to solve. we have 36 pumps

operating across the community that are supporting that. but that will ta ke are supporting that. but that will take days. residents living here tell me this village has not flooded for more than 70 years. when a gay bale is nowhere near the spot. the instinctive reaction as to bend to help each other and that is like this boat has been ferrying people back and forth to their homes to collect most treasured possessions. mark adams is helping his neighbours, but the floodwater is centimetres from his own front door. if think it's worse his floors —— his house will be activated. a p pa re ntly his house will be activated. apparently last night we were using brexit measures around the town, and came up another inch. i probably have five or six inches before i'm in. until the have five or six inches before i'm in. untilthe filthy have five or six inches before i'm in. until the filthy water receipts people cannot get into the damage. the damage. the longer homes remain flooded the words that it becomes. while they face a nervous way, the

village hall has become a community hub. 0ffering warm drinks sated and support. they state that no more significant rain is forecast, it could be days before east kallick dries out. they told, bbc news, east kallick. hello. after a blustery weekend, the winds will ease down tonight. that will lead to a cold night with some frost and ice around. ice particularly where the wintry showers continue through the night, the west of scotland, northern ireland and north—west england as well as north wales. some clearer skies away from that, the exception being across southern counties of england. now temperatures should hold above freezing for many, outbreaks of rain spreading away eastwards, but it is going to be cold enough for some sleet and snow mixed in. there could be a temporary covering of snow across the moors, the cotswolds, the chilterns as well, and maybe a few flakes of snow mixed in with the rain across east anglia and south—east england first thing in the morning. now that will clear through. the skies will brighten. a sunny afternoon and many eastern areas will stay sunny

throughout the afternoon. in the west, though, a few showers in the morning, maybe a few more in the afternoon, but not as many as we have seen through today, and whilst the winds will be lighter, it will still be a rather cool day across the country. temperatures sticking in single figures at around 4—7 or 8 degrees for the vast majority. maybe reaching 10 in the south—east corner. late in the day, more showers into the western scotland, and some gales here. hello. this is bbc news. i'm martine croxall. the headlines. another 12 people in the uk test positive for coronavirus — bringing the total number of cases in the country to 35. the prime minister has been visiting public health england the coronavirus is of concern, it is a novel illness. but it is something that this country amply has the resources to deal with. we