6 January 2020
A 23-year-old York university student travels from his family home in Hubei province to the UK for the start of new term.
23 January
The student’s parents travel from Hubei to the UK to visit their son in York and go on a sightseeing trip.
24 January
The government holds its first meeting of the emergency committee Cobra to discuss the coronavirus. Matt Hancock, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Boris Johnson, told reporters afterwards that the risk to the UK public was “low”.
26 January
The student’s mother first starts feeling ill after checking in to the Staycity apartment hotel in York.
29 January
The son rings NHS 111 to say he and his mother both have a fever and a cough and that she had just arrived from Hubei. At 7.50pm two paramedics dressed in hazmat suits arrive at the hotel. An ambulance takes the family to hospital in Hull, where they are tested.
30 January
The risk level from the virus in the UK is raised from low to moderate as the World Health Organization declares the pandemic a global health emergency. Tests conducted at Public Health England’s lab in Colindale, north-west London, confirm the York patients have coronavirus.
31 January
The family are transferred to a specialist hospital unit in Newcastle. PHE announces the first people in the UK to test positive for coronavirus.
1 February
University of York confirms that one of its students is among those who tested positive. In a statement it said: “Current information from PHE suggests that the student did not come into contact with anybody on campus whilst they had symptoms.”
4 February
Public Health England reveals that the student did spend a night in student accommodation days before testing positive.
17 February
The two patients are released from hospital in Newcastle after twice testing negative. They suffered relatively mild and short-lived symptoms, according to the doctors that treated them. There were no further confirmed cases linked to their infections.
