Status of COVID-19
According to GOV.UK, As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high chance of infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID19 as an HCID. This was based on the consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus. The diseases with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is far greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.
The need to have a national, coordinated response remains but this is being met by the government’s COVID-19 response.
Cases of COVID 19 are no longer managed by HCID treatment centres only. All healthcare workers managing possible and confirmed cases should follow the updated national infection and prevention (IPC) guidance for COVID-19. Which supersedes all previous IPC guidance for COVID-19. This guidance includes instructions about different personal protective equipment (PPE) ensembles that are appropriate for different clinical scenarios.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/